This investigation aims to study some properties of lightweight aggregate concrete reinforced by mono or hybrid fibers of different sizes and types. In this research, the considered lightweight aggregate was Light Expanded Clay Aggregate while the adopted fibers included hooked, straight, polypropylene, and glass. Eleven lightweight concrete mixes were considered, These mixes comprised of; one plain concrete mix (without fibers), two reinforced concrete mixtures of mono fiber (hooked or straight fibers), six reinforced concrete mixtures of double hybrid fibers, and two reinforced concrete mixtures of triple hybrid fibers. Hardened concrete properties were investigated in this study. Generally, mono and hybrid fiber specimens showed a significant increase in the splitting tensile strength compared to the plain specimen while they had a slight improvement in compressive strength and modulus of elasticity. The outcomes of the experimental results illustrated that hybrid fibers had the most significant advanced effect on concrete hardened properties. Moreover; the optimization procedure revealed that the best performance in terms of maximum mechanical properties achieved in the mixture reinforced by hybrid fibers[straight + hooked + glass]. The maximum achieved advantage reached (14.18%), (91.97%), and (36.70%) for compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity respectively.
A substantial percentage of the world’s energy consumption (almost 40%) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (around 37%) come from the construction industry, especially schools. This work presents a new hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) engineering model that aims to maximize energy performance on campuses in a holistic way. Modules for data-driven forecasting, metaheuristic optimization, and real-time adaptive control are all part of the concept. A thorough energy simulation of a university campus building is used in conjunction with the AI model to assess its performance through a co-simulation framework. Findings show that yearly peak electricity demand may be reduced by 18.7% and total site energy consumption by 22.4% when co
... Show MoreGiven the paucity and toxicity of available drugs for leishmaniasis, coupled with the advent of drug resistance, the discovery of new therapies for this neglected tropical disease is recognised as being of the utmost urgency. As such antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been proposed as promising compounds against the causative Leishmania species, insect vector-borne protozoan parasites. Here the AMP temporins A, B and 1Sa have been synthesised and screened for activity against Leishmania mexicana insect stage promastigotes and mammalian stage amastigotes, a significant cause of human cutaneous disease. In contrast to previous studies with other species the activity of these AMPs against L. mexicana amastigotes was low. This suggests that ama
... Show MoreIn this paper, an experimental study of the thermal performance for hybrid solar air conditioning system was carried out, to investigate system suitability for the hot climate in Iraq. The system consists of vapor compression unit combined with evacuated tube solar collector and liquid storage tank. A three-way valve was installed after the compressor to control the direction flow of the refrigerant, either to the storage tank or directly to the condenser. The performance parameters were collected by data logger to display and record in the computer by using LabVIEW software. The results show that the average coefficient of performance of hybrid solar air conditioning system (R=1) was about 2.42 to 2.77 and the average p
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a compact, plasmonic-based 4 × 4 nonblocking switch for optical networks. This device uses six 2 × 2 plasmonic Mach-Zehnder switch (MZS), whose arm waveguide is supported by a JRD1 polymer layer as a high electro-optic coefficient material. The 4 × 4 switch is designed in COMSOL environment for 1550 nm wavelength operation. The performance of the proposed switch outperforms those of conventional (nonplasmonic) counterparts. The designed switch yields a compact structure ( 500 × 70 µ m 2 ) having V π L = 12 V · µ m , 1.5 THz optical bandwidth, 7.7 dB insertion loss, and −26.5 dB crosstalk. The capability of the switch to route 8 × 40 Gbps WDM signal is demonstrated successfully.
... Show MoreThis research aims to investigate and improve multi-user free space optic systems (FSO) based on a hybrid subcarrier multiplexing spectral amplitude coding-optical code division multiple access (SCM-SAC-OCDMA) technique using MS code with a direct decoding technique. The performance is observed under different weather conditions including clear, rain, and haze conditions. The investigation includes analyzing the proposed system mathematically using MATLAB and OptiSystem software. The simulation is carried out using a laser diode. Furthermore, the performances of the MS code in terms of angles of bit rate, beam divergence and noise are evaluated based on bit error rate (BER), received
BP algorithm is the most widely used supervised training algorithms for multi-layered feedforward neural net works. However, BP takes long time to converge and quite sensitive to the initial weights of a network. In this paper, a modified cuckoo search algorithm is used to get the optimal set of initial weights that will be used by BP algorithm. And changing the value of BP learning rate to improve the error convergence. The performance of the proposed hybrid algorithm is compared with the stan dard BP using simple data sets. The simulation result show that the proposed algorithm has improved the BP training in terms of quick convergence of the solution depending on the slope of the error graph.