This study deals with the serviceability of reinforced concrete solid and perforated rafters with openings of different shapes and sizes based on an experimental study that includes 12 post-fire non-prismatic reinforced concrete beams (solid and perforated). Three groups were formed based on heating temperature (room temperature, 400 °C, and 700 °C), each group consisting of four rafters (solid, rafters with 6 and 8 trapezoidal openings, and rafter with eight circular openings) under static loading. A developed unified calculation technique for deflection and crack widths under static loading at the service stage has been provided, which comprises non-prismatic beams with or without opening exposed to flexure concentra

For modeling a photovoltaic module, it is necessary to calculate the basic parameters which control the current-voltage characteristic curves, that is not provided by the manufacturer. Generally, for mono crystalline silicon module, the shunt resistance is generally high, and it is neglected in this model. In this study, three methods are presented for four parameters model. Explicit simplified method based on an analytical solution, slope method based on manufacturer data, and iterative method based on a numerical resolution. The results obtained for these methods were compared with experimental measured data. The iterative method was more accurate than the other two methods but more complexity. The average deviation of

In this work, results from an optical technique (laser speckle technique) for measuring surface roughness was done by using statistical properties of speckle pattern from the point of view of computer image texture analysis. Four calibration relationships were used to cover wide range of measurement with the same laser speckle technique. The first one is based on intensity contrast of the speckle, the second is based on analysis of speckle binary image,  the third is on size of speckle pattern spot, and the latest one is based on characterization of the energy feature of the gray level co-occurrence matrices for the speckle pattern. By these calibration relationships surface roughness of an object surface can be evaluated within the

Four rapid, accurate and very simple derivative spectrophotometric techniques were developed for the quantitative determination of binary mixtures of estradiol (E2) and progesterone (PRG) formulated as a capsule. Method I is the first derivative zero-crossing technique, derivative amplitudes were detected at the zero-crossing wavelength of 239.27 and 292.51 nm for the quantification of estradiol and 249.19 nm for Progesterone. Method II is ratio subtraction, progesterone was determined at λmax 240 nm after subtraction of interference exerted by estradiol. Method III is modified amplitude subtraction, which was established using derivative spectroscopy and mathematical manipulations. Method IIII is the absorbance ratio technique, absorba

In this work, Soda Lime Glass (S.L.G.) powder was used ,as
fluxe in traditional porcelain instead of feldspar. Two ceramics
porcelain were compared; commercial or traditional porcelain that
content of 50wt % kaolin, 25wt % quartz, and 25wt % feldspar.
Feldspar mass was substituted by scraps soda lime glass yielding a
new porcelain composition, to determine the softening points and
then the effect of glass addition on porcelain firing process.
Eight samples, for each patch, were prepared and 8wt % water
was added. The resulting composite blends were then die pressed at
2N, to produce disk specimens with diameter of 1.5 cm, and then
they were sintered at (1000, 1100, 1200, 1250,1300,1350,1400 and
1450) ˚C,

This paper is devoted to investigate the effect of internal curing technique on the properties of self-compacting concrete. In this study, self-compacting concrete is produced by using limestone powder as partial replacement by weight of cement with percentage of (5%), sand is partially replaced by volume with saturated fine lightweight aggregate which is thermostone aggregate as internal curing material in three percentages of (5%, 10%, 15%) for self-compacting concrete, and the use of two external curing conditions which are water and air. The experimental work was divided into three parts: in the first part, the workability tests of fresh self-compacting concrete were conducted. The second part included conducting compressive str

The primary purpose of the present research was to study the effect of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) powder content on ultrasonic wave velocity in PVC/Epoxy composites. The second part is concerned with the relations of dynamic elastic moduli with the ultrasonic wave velocities, to determine how ultrasonic waves can affect them.
Experimental data have been obtained using the sonic viewer (model -5217 A) device to generate two types of waves, longitudinal waves of frequency 63 kHz and transverse waves of frequency 33 kHz and to measure the transit time required for those waves to travel through individual sample.
The experimental results have shown that the propagation of the ultrasonic velocity increases directly with PVC content in the

This work involves the calculation of the cooling load in Iraqi building constructions taking in account the effect of the convective heat transfer inside the buildings. ASHRAE assumptions are compared with the Fisher and Pedersen model of estimation of internal convective heat transfer coefficient when the high rate of ventilation from ceiling inlet configuration is used. Theoretical calculation of cooling load using the Radiant Time Series Method (RTSM) is implemented on the actual tested spaces. Also the theoretical calculated cooling loads are experimentally compared by measuring the cooling load in these tested spaces. The comparison appears that using the modified Fisher and Pedersen model when large ventilation ra