This paper demonstrates an experimental and numerical study aimed at comparing the influence of openings of different configurations on the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete gable roof beams. The experimental program consisted of testing six simply supported gable beams subjected to mid-point concentrated load. The variable which has been investigated in this work was opening's configuration (quadrilateral or circular) with the same upper and lower chords depth. The results indicate improvement in the beams’ flexural behavior when circular openings were used compared with that of quadrilateral openings, represented by an increase in ultimate load capacity and a decrease in deflection at the service limit. Also, there was an

This research presents an experimental investigation on the influence of metakaolin replacement percentage upon some properties of different concrete types. Three types of concrete were adopted (self- compacted concrete, high performance concrete and reactive powder concrete) all of high sulphate (SO3) percentage from the fine aggregate weight, 0.75%. Three percentages of metakaolin replacement were selected to be studied (5, 7 and 10) %. Three types of concrete properties (compressive, flexural and splitting tensile strength) were adopted to achieve better understanding for the influence of adding metakaolin.. The output results indicated that the percentage of metakaolin had a different level of positive effect on the compressive strength

Accurate description of thermodynamic, structural, and electronic properties for bulk and surfaces of ceria (CeO2) necessitates the inclusion of the Hubbard parameter (U) in the density functional theory (DFT) calculations to precisely account for the strongly correlated 4f electrons. Such treatment is a daunting task when attempting to draw a potential energy surface for CeO2-catalyzed reaction. This is due to the inconsistent change in thermo-kinetics parameters of the reaction in reference to the variation in the U values. As an illustrative example, we investigate herein the discrepancy in activation and reaction energies for steps underlying the partial and full hydrogenation of acetylene over the CeO2(111) surface. Overall, we find th