Production of biodegradable polymer matrix biocomposites that are cost effective, sustainable, and environmentally friendly with desirable properties using particles as discontinuous phase (filler) is a welcome development. In this study, bamboo particle reinforced epoxy resin matrix biocomposites were developed by stir casting method. Varied weight percentages (5 to 30 wt. %)  of  100 µm bamboo particles were added separately and blended with an epoxy resin – hardener matrix. The blends were fed into a fabricated wooden mould and allowed to cure at room temperature. After 24 hrs, the specimens were removed from the mould and subjected to microstructural examination using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Furthe

A new model equation has been constructed to estimate the liquid limit value, using the rapid one point method. Data processing was carried out in Microsoft Excel and SPSS, visualizing and using 6,210 theoretical trial points, which resulted from 135 samples along the actual flow index line, with the number of blows varying from 5 to 50 with an interval of unity. The model has two correction factors (CF), both of which are functions of the number of blows at the trial point in the test. The first CF is applied to the trial moisture content, while the second CF is applied to the previously estimated liquid limit. This technique was checked against real data points. For estimating the liquid limit for a large range of blow

This paper presents a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) high-coupled nonlinear model of a twin-rotor aerodynamic system (TRAS). An optimal sliding mode controller (SMC) is proposed to control the TRAS system. Two optimization algorithms, namely Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) and Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), are used to tune the SMC’s parameters. Which are effectively implemented in this controller. The simulation results are given to demonstrate its effectiveness. To evaluate the performance of the proposed controller, a comparison with a previous study—that used Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithms—has been conducted. The results of the proposed cont

Roller compacted concrete (RCC) is a concrete of no slump, no reinforcement, no finishing, and compacted using vibratory roller. When compared with conventional concrete, it contains less water content
when compared to traditional concrete. The RCC technique achieves significant time and cost savings during the construction of concrete. This study demonstrates the preparation of RCC slab of (38 ×38× 10) cm
samples by using roller compactor which is manufactured in local markets. The Hydrated lime additive is used to study the mechanical and physical properties of that RCC slab samples. This investigation is divided
into two main stages: The First stage consists of hammer compaction method with two gradation of aggregate, dense

In this paper, soil – pore fluid behavior of a silo under an earthquake loading is investigated. To predict the
response of the silo with the soil surrounding it, ‘the linear-elastic constitutive model’ is adopted with soil
properties; shear modulus and damping ratio; are strains and cycle independent.
A computer program using dynamic stiffness matrix analyses (DSMA) for predicting and analyzing the
model was established using FORTRAN coding. The program is based on geophysical values (such as primary velocity (vp), shear velocity (vs), modulus of elasticity (E), mass density (), shear modulus (G),….etc). The values were obtained from field test results for the soil under a silo located in Kirkuk, Iraq.
To check a

In this research, the possibility of using waste wooden materials (reed and sawdust) was studied to produce sustainable and thermal insulation lightweight building units , which has economic and environmental advantages. This study is intended to produce light weight building units with low thermal conductivity, so it can be used as partitions to improve the thermal insulation in buildings. Waste wooden materials were used as a partial replacement of natural sand, in different percentages (10, 20, 30, and 40) % . The mix proportions were (1:2.5) (cement: fine aggregate) with w/c of 0.4. The values of 28 days oven dry density ranged between (2060-1693) kg/m³.The thermal conductivity decreased from (0.745 to 0.2

Whenever a mathematical model is suggested to classing COVID-19. The population must be divided into several groups and our model has five groups namely S(t), E(t), I(t), V(t) and R(t) which represent susceptible, exposed, inflected, vaccinated and recovered individuals respectively. This model is a continuous dynamical system where the derivative is in fractional form. An analysis solution evaluates the positivity of the functions S(t), E(t), I(t), V(t) and R(t) as solutions of the system. The uniformity of the solutions of the system under consideration is also proved. And finding the equilibrium points. To get acceptable results one needs the solutions. Some of the solutions are points called equilibrium points and th

The Weather Generation Model “LARSWG” and hydrological Model “SWAT” used in this study to estimate the quantity of future surface runoff in the Sahiliya Valley located within the Iraqi western desert. The weather data for the last ten years used as input in the LARSWG model to generate future weather data under the effect of climate change. In this model, the statistical test analysis done automatically, with two statistical test values, the (KS-value) test and the (p-value) test. The results of these tests are equal or close to zero (0.0) for KS-values, and equal or somewhat close to one (1.o) for p-values, which means the LARS-WG model is perfect for generating rainfall and temperature, and is more suitable in

Low incoming discharge upstream of Samarra-Al Tharthar System leads to sediment accumulation and forming islands, especially an island upstream of Al Tharthar Regulator. This island and the sedimentation threaten the stability of the structure and reduce the efficiency of the system. This study aims to hydraulically identify the sedimentation problem mentioned above, to find solutions of how to control the sediment problems, and to develop the capacity of
the system for 500 years return period flood of 15060 m3/s. Surface Water Modeling System (SMS10.1) with two dimensional depth average models (RMA-2) software were used to simulate and analyze the system. The results of analysis showed that the maximum permissible discharge through t

The effect of applied current on protection of carbon steel in 0.1N NaCl solution (pH=7) was investigated under flow conditions (0-0.262 m/s) for a range of temperatures (35-55°C) using rotating cylinder electrode. Various values of currents were applied to protect steel from corrosion, these were Iapp.=Icorr., Iapp.=2Icorr. and Iapp.=2.4Icorr. under stationary and flow conditions. Corrosion current was measured by weight loss method. The variation of protection potential with time and rotation velocity at various applied currents was assessed. It is found that the corrosion rate of carbon steel increases with rotation velocity and
has unstable trend with temperature. The protection current required varies with temperature and it inc

The main objective of resources management is to supply and support the site operation with necessary resources in a way to achieve the required timing in handing over the work as well as to achieve the cost-realism within the budget estimated. The research aims to know the advantage of using GIS in management of resources as one of the new tools that keep pace with the evolution in various countries around the world also collect the vast amount of spatial data resources in one environment easily to handled and accessed quickly and this help to make the right decision regarding management of resources in various construction projects. The process of using GIS in the management and identification of resources is of extreme importance in t

In this study, a novel application of lab-scale dual chambered air-cathode microbial fuel cell (MFC) has been developed for simultaneous bio-treatment of real pharmaceutical wastewater and renewable electricity generation. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) was provided with zeolite-packed anodic compartment and a cation exchange membrane (CEM) to separate the anode and cathode. The performance of the proposed MFC was evaluated in terms of COD removal and power generation based on the activity of the bacterial consortium in the biofilm mobilized on zeolite bearer. The MFC was fueled with real pharmaceutical wastewater having an initial COD concentration equal to 800 mg/L and inoculated with anaerobic aged sludge. Results demo

This work deals with the production of light fuel cuts of (gasoline, kerosene and gas oil) by catalytic cracking treatment of secondary product mater (heavy vacuum gas oil) which was produced from the vacuum distillation unit in any petroleum refinery. The objective of this research was to study the effect of the catalyst -to- oil ratio parameter on catalytic cracking process of heavy vacuum gas oil feed at constant temperature (450 °C). The first step of this treatment was, catalytic cracking of this material by constructed batch reactor occupied with auxiliary control devices, at selective range of the catalyst –to- oil ratio parameter (  2, 2.5, 3 and 3.5) respectively.  The conversion of heavy vacuum gas

In this paper, a national grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system is proposed. It extracts the maximum power point (MPP) using three-incremental-steps perturb and observe (TISP&O) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method. It improves the classic P&O by using three incremental duty ratio (ΔD) instead of a single one in the conventional P and O MPPT method. Therefore, the system's performance is improved to a higher speed and less power fluctuation around the MPP. The Boost converter controls the MPPT and then is connected to a three-phase voltage source inverter (VSI). This type of inverter needs a high and constant input voltage. A second-order low pass (LC) filter is connected to the output of VSI to reduce t

The distribution of chilled water flow rate in terminal unit is an important factor used to evaluate the performance of central air conditioning unit. A prototype of A/C unit has been made, which contains three terminal units with a complete set of accessories (3-way valve, 2-way valve, and sensors) to study the effect of the main parameters, such as total water flow rate and chilled water supply temperature with variable valve opening. In this work, 40 tests were carried out. These tests were in two groups, 20 test for 3-way valve case and 20 test for 2-way valve case. These tests were performed at three levels of valve opening, total water flow rate and water supply temperature according to the design matrices establis

Biaxial hollow slab is a reinforced concrete slab system with a grid of internal spherical voids included to reduce the self-weight. This paper presents an experimental study of behavior of one-way prestressed concrete bubbled slabs. Twelve full-scale one-way concrete slabs of (3000mm) length with rectangular cross-sectional area of (460mm) width and (150mm) depth. Different parameters like type of specimen (solid or bubbled slabs), type of reinforcement (normal or prestress), range of PPR and diameter of plastic spheres (100 or 120mm) are considered. Due to the using of prestressing force in bubbled slabs (with ratio of plastic sphere diameter D to slab thickness H, D/H=0.67), the specimens showed an increase in ultimat

This study involves the design of 24 mixtures of fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing nano Silica. Tap water has been used in mixing 12 of these mixtures, while the other 12 have been mixed using magnetic water. Nano Silica (NS) with ratios (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3) % were used. The results showed that the mixture containing 2.5%NS gives the highest compressive strength at age 7 days. Many different other tests were carried out, the results showed that the fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing 2.5% NS (FRMRPCCNS)  has the higher bulk density, dynamic modulus of elasticity, ultrasonic pulse velocity  electrical resistivity and lesser absorption than fiber reinforced

The quality of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) networks are considerably influenced by the configuration of the observed baselines. Where, this study aims to find an optimal configuration for GNSS baselines in terms of the number and distribution  of baselines to improve the quality criteria of the GNSS networks. First order design problem (FOD) was applied in this research to optimize GNSS network baselines configuration, and based on sequential adjustment method to solve its objective functions.

FOD for optimum precision (FOD-p) was the proposed model which based on the design criteria of A-optimality and E-optimality. These design criteria were selected as objective functions of precision, whic

The present paper describes and analyses three proposed cogeneration plants include back pressure steam-turbine system, gas turbine system, diesel-engine system, and the present Dura refinery plant. Selected actual operating data are employed for analysis. The same amount of electrical and thermal product outputs is considered for all systems to facilitate comparisons. The theoretical analysis was done according to 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamic. The results demonstrate that exergy analysis is a useful tool in performance analysis of cogeneration systems and permits meaningful comparisons of different cogeneration systems based on their merits, also the result showed that the back pressure steam-turbine is more efficient than other pro

There is a problem, in Iraq, due to the multitude of malfunction after the overall annual maintenance has been achieved, and that raises the cost of continuous repairs, one of the reasons of this problem, is the absence of planned testing and automation for testing devices, the second reason is the neglect of concentrating on a database, the third one is not following an integrated testing system
for all parts, as well as, there are no documented reports for inspected parts. Most of various nondestructive inspection techniques have been achieved random selection steps. The lack of a documentation system leads to lack of historical information a bout failures parts of a boiler that affect inspection decision process. This paper summ

The aim of the present work is the adsorption of the furfural onto activated carbon where Langmuir and Freundlich equation were used to determine the adsorption isotherm in the batch experiment Continuous adsorption experiments of fixed-bed were carried out to study the effects of flow rate. bed depth, initial furfural concentration, carbon particle size to determine breakpoint time and adsorption capacity

he present study has been carried out to investigate the effect of Elasto Hydrodynamic Lubrication (EHL) on the pressure distribution of cold rolling strip by taking new conditions, which give new results in the theoretical analysis. This analysis takes into consideration the variation of the yield stress of the material, the position of the neutral angle (0) and the shear stress along the direction of rolling.The results obtained from the numerical method are in good agreement with the previous experimental result.

This paper delineates the parallelisation of a computer vision system. It presents the system proposal and the relevant design phases of a laboratory based model. This model involves special purpose hardware implementing the early stages of processing with very high data rate. It Incorporates facilities enabling the user to capture, retain, retrieve, compare, and analyse video images. The output of this hardware is to be processed by a software running in a parallel processor. The latter is a VMEbus-based multiprocessing machine accommodating the system hardware and ensures for better flexibility. It also participates in a reasonable distribution of the systern processing power. The kernel philosophy here depends on the concept of modula

This search has introduced the techniques of multi-wavelet transform and neural network for recognition 3-D object from 2-D image using patches. The proposed techniques were tested on database of different patches features and the high energy subband of discrete multi-wavelet transform DMWT (gp) of the patches. The test set has two groups, group (1) which contains images, their (gp) patches and patches features of the same images as a part of that in the data set beside other images, (gp) patches and features, and group (2) which contains the (gp) patches and patches features the same as a part of that in the database but after modification such as rotation, scaling and translation. Recognition by back propagation (BP) neural network as

This paper is devoted to investigate the effect of internal curing technique on the properties of self-compacting concrete (SCC). In this study, SCC is produced by using silica fume (SF) as partial replacement by weight of cement with percentage of (5%), sand is partially replaced by volume with saturated fine lightweight aggregate (LWA) which is thermostone chips as internal curing material in three percentages of (5%, 10% and 15%) for SCC, two external curing conditions water and air. The experimental work was divided into three parts: in the first part, the workability tests of fresh SCC were conducted. The second part included conducting compressive strength test and modulus of rupture test at ages of (7, 28 and 90). The third part i

This studies concerned with the optimum weight design of steel plate girders which have been used in long spans and heavy loads constructions. AISC-1989 Specification was used for design calculations, A computer program was prepared to achieve the optimum design. Flexure ard derlection were considered. The correlation between the clear depth (h) and the weight per unit length of the girder were established for different loads, spans, steel grades, minimum theoretical web thickness, and minimum practical web thickness. It was found that the optimum weight s obtained when the flange width is nearly equal to the clear distance (h) between the flanges. Also it was found that small difference in opumum weight is obtained when using the minimu

ناول هذا البحث دراسة النفايات الصلبة لمدينة النجف التابعة إلى محافظة النجف ، وهي إحدى مدن العراق المهمة ذات الأهمية الدينية

وتضمنت هذه الدراسة التعرف على خصائص النفايات الصلبة (معدلات التولد ، المكونات الفيزيائية ، محتوى الرطوبة ، الكثافة). وتم إجراء الفحوصات على النفايات لمدة ثمانية اشهر وللفترة من كانون الأول 2003م وحتى تموز 2004 للأخذ بنظر الاعتبار تغيرات فصول

السنة وتأثير درجات الحرارة على هذه الخ

The main aim of this paper is studied the punching shear and behavior of reinforced concrete slabs exposed to fires, the possibility of punching shear failure occurred as a result of the fires and their inability to withstand the loads. Simulation by finite element analysis is made to predict the type of failure, distribution temperature through the thickness of the slabs, deformation and punching strength. Nonlinear finite element transient thermal-structural analysis at fire conditions are analyzed by ANSYS package. The validity of the modeling is performed for the mechanical and thermal properties of materials from earlier works from literature to decrea

The performance and durability of the asphalt pavement structure mainly depend on the strength of the bonding between the layers. Such a bond is achieved through the use of an adhesive material (tack coat) to bond the asphalt layers. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of moisture in conjunction with repeated traffic loads on the strength of the bonding between asphalt layers using two types of tack coats with different application rates. Using the nominal maximum size of aggregate (NMAS), the layers were graded (25/19) and (19/9.5) mm. The slabs of multilayer asphalt concrete were prepared using a roller compactor using two types of tack coats to bond between layers, namely rapid curing cut back a

Furfural is a toxic aromatic aldehyde that can cause a severe environmental problem especially the wastewater drown from petroleum refinery units. In the present work, a useless by-product from local furniture manufacturing industry; sawdust was used as raw material for the preparation of activated carbon which is chemically activated with phosphoric acid. The effect of adsorption variables which include initial pH of solution (2-9), agitation speed (50-250) rpm, agitation time (15-120) min, initial concentration of furfural (50-250) ppm, and amount of adsorbent material (0.5-2.5) g for the three adsorbents used (prepared activated carbon, commercial activated carbon and raw sawdust) were investigated in a batch process