Piled raft is commonly used as foundation for high rise buildings. The design concept of piled raft foundation is to minimize the number of piles, and to utilize the entire bearing capacity. High axial stresses are therefore, concentrated at the region of connection between the piles and raft. Recently, an alternative technique is proposed to disconnect the piles from the raft in a so called unconnected piled raft (UCPR) foundation, in which a compacted soil layer (cushion) beneath the raft, is usually introduced.  The piles of the new system are considered as reinforcement members for the subsoil rather than as structural members. In the current study, the behavior of unconnected piled rafts systems has been studie

In this paper, a robust invisible watermarking system for digital video encoded by MPEG-4 is presented. The proposed scheme provides watermark hidden by embedding a secret message (watermark) in the sprite area allocated in reference frame (I-frame). The proposed system consists of two main units: (i) Embedding unit and (ii) Extraction unit. In the embedding unit, the system allocates the sprite blocks using motion compensation information. The allocated sprite area in each I–frame is used as hosting area for embedding watermark data. In the extraction unit, the system extracts the watermark data in order to check authentication and ownership of the video. The watermark data embedding method is Blocks average modulation applied on RGB dom

In this study, the flexural performance of a new composite beam–slab system filled with concrete material was investigated, where this system was mainly prepared from lightweight cold-formed steel sections of a beam and a deck slab for carrying heavy floor loads as another concept of a conventional composite system with a lower cost impact. For this purpose, seven samples of a profile steel sheet–dry board deck slab (PSSDB/PDS) carried by a steel cold-formed C-purlins beam (CB) were prepared and named “composite CBPDS specimen”, which were tested under a static bending load. Specifically, the effects of the profile steel sheet (PSS) direction (parallel or perpendicular to the span of the specimen) using different C-purlins c

In this research the relation between skin resistances and standard penetration test of over consolidated
clay soils has been studied. The research includes doing boreholes at Babil governorate in Iraq to get
undisturbed samples and standard penetration test. Determination skin friction from direct shear test between
smooth concrete and soil was explored in laboratory for design purposes and correlated with standard
penetration test values. In many foundation design problems, the shear strength between soil and
foundation materials were estimated or correlated without any direct methods for measurement.
Twelve strain controlled direct shear tests were performed simulate the shear strength interaction
between smooth c

Studies on the flexural behavior of post-tensioned beams subjected to strand damage and strengthened with near-surface mounted (NSM) technique using carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) are limited and fail to examine the effect of CFRP laminates on strand strain and strengthening efficiency systematically. Furthermore, a design approach for UPC structures in existing design guidelines for FRP strengthening techniques is lacking. Hence, the behavior of post-tensioned beams strengthened with NSM-CFRP laminates after partial strand damage is investigated in this study. The testing program consists of seven post-tensioned beams strengthened by NSM-CFRP laminates with three partial strand damage ratios (14.3% symmetrical damage, 14.3%

Concrete columns with hollow-core sections find widespread application owing to their excellent structural efficiency and efficient material utilization. However, corrosion poses a challenge in concrete buildings with steel reinforcement. This paper explores the possibility of using glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcement as a non-corrosive and economically viable substitute for steel reinforcement in short square hollow concrete columns. Twelve hollow short columns were meticulously prepared in the laboratory experiments and subjected to pure axial compressive loads until failure. All columns featured a hollow square section with exterior dimensions of (180 × 180) mm and 900 mm height. The columns were categorized into

Hydrated lime has been recognized as an effective additive used to improve asphalt concrete properties in pavement applications. However, further work is still needed to quantify the effect of hydrated lime on asphaltic concrete performance under varied weather, temperature, and environmental conditions and in the application of different pavement courses. A research project was conducted using hydrated lime to modify the asphalt concretes used for the applications of wearing (surface), leveling (binder), and base courses. A previous publication reported the experimental study on the resistance to Marshall stability and the volumetric properties, the resilient modulus, and permanent deformation at three different weather temperatures. This

n Segmented Optical Telescope (NGST) with hexagonal segment of spherical primary mirror can provide a 3 arc minutes field of view. Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT) in the 100m dimension would have such unprecedented scientific effectiveness that their construction would constitute a milestone comparable to that of the invention of the telescope itself and provide a truly revolutionary insight into the universe. The scientific case and the conceptual feasibility of giant filled aperture telescopes was our interested. Investigating the requirements of these imply for possible technical options in the case of a 100m telescope. For this telescope the considerable interest is the correction of the optical aberrations for the coming wavefront, th

In this study, the effect of pumping power on the conversion efficiency of nonlinear crystal (KTP) was investigated using laser pump-power technique. The results showed that the higher the pumping power values, the greater the conversion efficiency (η) and, as the crystal thickness increases within limitations, the energy conversion efficiency increases at delay time of (0.333 ns) and at room temperature. Efficiency of 80% at length of KTP crystal (L = 1.75 X 10^-3 m) and P_in = 28MW, and also, compare the experimental results with numerical results by using MATLAB program.