Durability of hot mix asphalt (HMA) against moisture damage is mostly related to asphalt-aggregate adhesion. The objective of this work is to find the effect of nanoclay with montmorillonite (MMT) on Marshall properties and moisture susceptibility of asphalt mixture. Two types of asphalt cement, AC(40-50) and AC(60-70) were modified with 2%, 4% and 6% of Iraqi nanoclay with montmorillonite. The Marshall properties, Tensile strength ratio(TSR) and Index of retained strength(ISR) were determined in this work. The total number of specimens was 216 and the optimum asphalt content was 4.91% and 5% for asphalt cement (40-50) and (60-70) respectively. The results showed that the modification of asphalt cement with MMT led to increase Marsh

This research studies the effect of adding five different percentages of polymer (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10% of cement weight) on cement mortar's fresh and hardened properties, which was cured at laboratory temperature for 7, 14, and 28 days. Workability increases with increasing polymer. The workability value was lowest (25.6 and 29.4) % in mixtures containing 2% and 4% of (SBR). Increasing polymer ratios significantly decreased mechanical properties (compressive and flexural strength). Therefore, the best results were at 2% SBR and 4% SBR at 28 days of age. An inverse relationship was recorded between the increase in SBR ratios and polymer-modified cement mortar's compressive and flexural strength values. In general, the high

A new modified differential evolution algorithm DE-BEA, is proposed to improve the reliability of the standard DE/current-to-rand/1/bin by implementing a new mutation scheme inspired by the bacterial evolutionary algorithm (BEA). The crossover and the selection schemes of the DE method are also modified to fit the new DE-BEA mechanism. The new scheme diversifies the population by applying to all the individuals a segment based scheme that generates multiple copies (clones) from each individual one-by-one and applies the BEA segment-wise mechanism. These new steps are embedded in the DE/current-to-rand/bin scheme. The performance of the new algorithm has been compared with several DE variants over eighteen benchmark functions including sever

In this work, silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) thin films were deposited on metallic substrates (aluminium and titanium sheets) by the DC reactive sputtering technique using two different silicon targets (n-type and p-type Si wafers) as well as two Ar:N₂ gas mixing ratios (50:50 and 70:30). The electrical conductivity of the metallic (aluminium and titanium) substrates was measured before and after the deposition of silicon nitride thin films on both surfaces of the substrates. The results obtained from this work showed that the deposited films, in general, reduced the electrical conductivity of the substrates, and the thin films prepared from n-type silicon targets using a 50:50 mixing ratio and deposited on both

A Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA 2) approach for solving the multi-objective Environmental / Economic Power Dispatch (EEPD) problem is presented in this paper. In the past fuel cost consumption minimization was the aim (a single objective function) of economic power dispatch problem. Since the clean air act amendments have been applied to reduce SO2 and NOX emissions from power plants, the utilities change their strategies in order to reduce pollution and atmospheric emission as well, adding emission minimization as other objective function made economic power dispatch (EPD) a multi-objective problem having conflicting objectives. SPEA2 is the improved version of SPEA with better fitness assignment, density estimation, an

In this paper, a miniaturized 2 × 2 electro-optic plasmonic Mach– Zehnder switch (MZS) based on metal–polymer–silicon hybrid waveguide is presented. Adiabatic tapers are designed to couple the light between the plasmonic phase shifter, implemented in each of the MZS arms, and the 3-dB input/output directional couplers. For 6 µm-long hybrid plasmonic waveguide supported by JRD1 polymer (r33= 390 pm/V), a π-phase shift voltage of 2 V is obtained. The switch is designed for 1550 nm operation wavelength using COMSOL software and characterizes by 2.3 dB insertion loss, 9.9 fJ/bit power consumption, and 640 GHz operation bandwidth

This paper is summarized with one of the applications of adsorption behavior; A UV-Vis method has been applied to survey the isotherm of adsorption. Results for experimental showed the applicability of Langmuir equation. The effect of temperature on the adsorption of cobalt (II) Complex by bentonite surface was studied. The results shown that the amount of adsorption was formed to increase, such as the temperature increase (Endothermic process). Cobalt (II) Complex has adsorption studies by bentonite surface at different pH values (1.6-10); these studies displayed an increase in adsorption with increasing pH. ∆G, ∆H, and ∆S thermodynamic functions of the cobalt (II) Complex for their adsorption have been calculated

This paper is summarized with one of the applications of adsorption behavior; A UV-Vis method has been applied to survey the isotherm of adsorption. Results for experimental showed the applicability of Langmuir equation. The effect of temperature on the adsorption of cobalt (II) Complex by bentonite surface was studied. The results shown that the amount of adsorption was formed to increase, such as the temperature increase (Endothermic process). Cobalt (II) Complex has adsorption studies by bentonite surface at different pH values (1.6-10); these studies displayed an increase in adsorption with increasing pH. ΔG, ΔH, and ΔS thermodynamic functions of the cobalt (II) Complex for their adsorption have been calculated.