Earth dams in regions with moderate to high seismic activity are crucial for protecting downstream communities. Iraq and its neighboring areas have seen recurrent seismic activity, notably the 2017 Halabja Earthquake, which potentially compromised the integrity of the existing earth dam. The Darbandikhan Dam, affected by an earthquake, has inadequacies in its crest and downstream slope, presenting a greater danger of significant earthquake-induced damage compared to cyclic shocks. Consequently, evaluating the dam's safety is essential for safeguarding downstream residents and identifying optimal ways to avert slope stability failure amid recurrent seismic activity. Iraq's seismicity map is being updated to reflect earthquake magnitude, highlighting the need for immediate action. Stone columns are a ground improvement technique that utilizes compacted stone columns to enhance soil strength by increasing shear strength and reducing excess pore water pressure in non-cohesive soils. The behavior of prop stone columns on slopes under static and dynamic loads has not been extensively investigated. This study the influence of stone columns on the stability of the downstream slope of the Al-Adhaim Earth Dam in Diyala Governorate, Iraq, under static and dynamic loads induced by four earthquakes with a peak ground acceleration of 0.2 g for durations of 15 and 30 seconds, using Geo Studio software for various scenarios. The findings indicated that the stone column resulted in a very slight improvement in the safety factor of the downstream slope under static load conditions. The presence of the stone column significantlymproved the safety factor during all seismic occurrences relative to its absence.
The tourism industry has become, currently, an art, an industry and a science. It is also one of the components that make up touristic regions. Tourist attractions are no longer the exclusive visits of museums and archeological sites, but also involve other service facilities. It is, therefore, imperative that the authorities should become aware of the degradation of tourist resorts and prevent them from getting worse. Moreover, the authorities should take a set of decisions concerning the protection of the urban aspect with its historical, social, and environmental dimensions, as well as, adapting it to the modern requirements that can bring comfort to the citizens and tourists at physical and psychological levels.
Consuming of by-product or waste materials in highway engineering is significant in the construction of new roads and/or in renovations of the existing ones. Pulverised Fuel ash (PFA), which is a by-product material of burning coal in power stations, is one of these materials that might be incorporated instead of mineral filler in hot asphalt mixtures.
Two types of surface course mixtures have been prepared one with conventional mineral filler i.e. ordinary Portland cement (OPC) while the second was with PFA. Several testings have been conducted to indicate the mechanical properties which were Marshall Stability and Indirect Tensile Strength tests. On the other hand, moisture damage and ageing have been evaluated
... Show MoreAn encryption system needs unpredictability and randomness property to maintain information security during transmission and storage. Although chaotic maps have this property, they have limitations such as low Lyapunov exponents, low sensitivity and limited chaotic regions. The paper presents a new improved skewed tent map to address these problems. The improved skew tent map (ISTM) increases the sensitivity to initial conditions and control parameters. It has uniform distribution of output sequences. The programs for ISTM chaotic behavior were implemented in MATLAB R2023b. The novel ISTM produces a binary sequence, with high degree of complexity and good randomness properties. The performance of the ISTM generator shows effective s
... Show MoreReliability is an essential measure and important component of all power system planning and operation procedures. It is one of the key design factors when designing complex, critical and expensive systems. This paper presents a fuzzy logic approach for reliability improvement planning purposes. Evaluating the reliability of the complex and large planned Iraqi super grid ;as Al- Khairat generating station with its tie set is intended to be compact to that grid; and determination of the given reliability improvement project are the major goals of the paper. Results show that the Iraqi super grid reliability is improved by 9.64%. In the proposed technique, fuzzy set theory is used to include imprecise indices of different components in normal
... Show MoreThe effects of shot peening treatment (SPT) were studied at (10,20, and 30) minutes on the rotating bending fatigue behavior and the behavior of the alloy steel DIN 41Cr4 vibrations. The hardness test, tensile test, constant amplitude fatigue tests, and the vibration measurements were performed on samples with and without cracks at room temperature (RT), also, the fracture surface was examined and analyzed by a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The results of the investigations, for example, Stress to Number of cycles to failure (S-N) curves, fatigue strength improvement factor of 5% to 10%, the decreasing percentage of maximum Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) acceleration of the shot-peened condition were compared to untr
... Show MoreFor the purpose of determining the impact of three levels of nitrogen fertilizer (0, 60, and 120 kg.ha-1) and sulfur fertilizer (0, 40, and 60 kg.ha-1) on production and growth indicators (number of leaves, number of branches, chlorophyll pigments, and fresh and dry weights), a field experiment was carried out during the winter season (2021/2022) in the fields of Al-Diwaniyah Province, Ministry of Agriculture, Diwaniyah Agriculture Directorate, Al-Nouriyah Forest Division. Means were compared using the least significant difference test (LSD) at a 0.05 level of probability. In a factorial experiment employing a wholly randomized block design wi
This study conduct in Al-Muthanna governorate to assess five concentrations of
This paper presents an experimental study for strengthening existing columns against axial compressive loads. The objective of this work is to study the behavior of concrete square columns strengthening with circulation technique. In Iraq, there are significantly more reinforced rectangular and square columns than reinforced circular columns in reinforced concrete buildings. Moreover, early research studies indicated that strengthening of rectangular or square columns using wraps of CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) provided rather little enhancement to their load-carrying capacity. In this paper, shape modification technique was performed to modify the shape (cross section) of the columns from square columns into circular colu
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