A novel demountable shear connector for precast steel-concrete composite bridges is presented. The connector uses high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the top flange of the steel beam with the aid of a special locking nut configuration that prevents bolts from slipping within their holes. Moreover, the connector promotes accelerated construction and overcomes the typical construction tolerance issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connector allows bridge disassembly. Therefore, it can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow including the following: (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (3) steel beams can be replaced, whereas precast decks and shear connectors can be reused. A series of push-out tests are conducted to assess the behavior of the connector and quantify the effect of important parameters. The experimental results show shear resistance, stiffness, and slip capacity significantly higher than those of welded shear studs along with superior stiffness and strength against slab uplift. Identical tests reveal negligible scatter in the shear load-slip displacement behavior. A design equation is proposed to predict the shear resistance with absolute error less than 8%.
Background: With the increasing demands for adult orthodontics, a growing need arises to bond attachments to porcelain surfaces. Optimal adhesion to porcelain surface should allow orthodontic treatment without bond failure but not jeopardize porcelain integrity after debonding.The present study was carried out to compare the shear bond strength of metal bracket bonded to porcelain surface prepared by two mechanical treatments and by using different etching systems (Hydrofluoric acid 9% and acidulated phosphate fluoride 1.23%). Materials and Methods: The samples were comprised of 60 models (28mm *15mm*28mm) of metal fused to porcelain (feldspathic porcelain). They were divided as the following: group I (control): the porcelain surface left u
... Show MoreSolubility problem of many of effective pharmaceutical molecules are still one of the major obstacle in theformulation of such molecules. Candesartan cilexetil (CC) is angiotensin II receptor antagonist with very low water solubility and this result in low and variable bioavailability. Self- emulsifying drug delivery system (SEDDS) showed promising result in overcoming solubility problem of many drug molecules. CC was prepared as SEDDS by using novel combination of two surfactants (tween 80 and cremophore EL) and tetraglycol as cosurfactant, in addition to the use of triacetin as oil. Different tests were performed in order to confirm the stability of the final product which includes thermodynamic study, determination of self-emulsificat
... Show MoreRegression analysis models are adopted by using SPSS program to predict the 28-day compressive strength as dependent variable and the accelerated compressive strength as independent variable. Three accelerated curing method was adopted, warm water (35ºC) and autogenous according to ASTM C C684-99 and the British method (55ºC) according to BS1881: Part 112:1983. The experimental concrete mix design was according to ACI 211.1. Twenty eight concrete mixes with slump rang (25-50) mm and (75-100)mm for rounded and crushed coarse aggregate with cement content (585, 512, 455, 410, 372 and 341)Kg/m3.
The experimental results showed that the acc
... Show MoreIn this paper, Response Surface Method (RSM) is utilized to carry out an investigation of the impact of input parameters: electrode type (E.T.) [Gr, Cu and CuW], pulse duration of current (Ip), pulse duration on time (Ton), and pulse duration off time (Toff) on the surface finish in EDM operation. To approximate and concentrate the suggested second- order regression model is generally accepted for Surface Roughness Ra, a Central Composite Design (CCD) is utilized for evaluating the model constant coefficients of the input parameters on Surface Roughness (Ra). Examinations were performed on AISI D2 tool steel. The important coefficients are gotten by achieving successfully an Analysis of V
... Show MoreThis study aims to investigate the behavior and strength of self-compacted ferrocement slabs under punching shear load. Experimental results of thirteen square ferrocement slabs of 500×500 mm simply supported on all edges are presented. The main parameters investigated include the volume fraction of reinforcement, slab thickness and size of load-bearing plate. The load deflection and cracking characteristics of the tested slabs are studied and compared. The test results showed that the volume fraction of wire mesh has significant effect on both ultimate load and displacement. The increase of slab thickness leads to decrease in deflection values and increase in stiffness of slabs. Both ductility and stiffness increase as the
... Show MoreA Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computerized database management system for accumulating, storage, retrieval, analysis, and display spatial data. In general, GIS contains two broad categories of information, geo-referenced spatial data and attribute data. Geo-referenced spatial data define objects that have an orientation and relationship in two or three-dimensional space, while attribute data is qualitative data that can be counted for recording and analysis. The main aim of this research is to reveal the role of GIS technology in the enhancement of bridge maintenance management system components such as the output results, and make it more interpretable through dynamic colour coding and more sophisticated visualization
... Show MoreIn this paper, the finite element method is used to study the dynamic behavior of the damaged rotating composite blade. Three dimensional, finite element programs were developed using a nine node laminated shell as a discretization element for the blade structure (the same element type is used for damaged and non-damaged structure). In this analysis the initial stress effect (geometric stiffness) and other rotational effects except the carioles acceleration effect are included. The investigation covers the effect speed of rotation, aspect ratio, skew angle, pre-twist angle, radius to length, layer lamination and fiber orientation of composite blade. After modeling a non-damaged rotating composite blade, the work procedure was to ap
... Show MoreThis paper investigates an effective computational method (ECM) based on the standard polynomials used to solve some nonlinear initial and boundary value problems appeared in engineering and applied sciences. Moreover, the effective computational methods in this paper were improved by suitable orthogonal base functions, especially the Chebyshev, Bernoulli, and Laguerre polynomials, to obtain novel approximate solutions for some nonlinear problems. These base functions enable the nonlinear problem to be effectively converted into a nonlinear algebraic system of equations, which are then solved using Mathematica®12. The improved effective computational methods (I-ECMs) have been implemented to solve three applications involving nonli
... Show MoreA method has been demonstrated to synthesise effective zeolite membranes from existing crystals without a hydrothermal synthesis step.
An automatic text summarization system mimics how humans summarize by picking the most significant sentences in a source text. However, the complexities of the Arabic language have become challenging to obtain information quickly and effectively. The main disadvantage of the traditional approaches is that they are strictly constrained (especially for the Arabic language) by the accuracy of sentence feature functions, weighting schemes, and similarity calculations. On the other hand, the meta-heuristic search approaches have a feature tha
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