In the present investigation two different types of fiber reinforced polymer composites were prepared by hand lay-up method using three different parameters (curing temperature, pressing load and fiber volume fraction). These composites were prepared from the polyester resin as the matrix material reinforced with glass fibers as first group of samples and mat Kevlar fibers as the second group, both with different volume fractions (4%, 8%, and 12%) of fibers. They were then tested by tensile strength and impact strength. The main objective in this study is to use Taguchi method for predicting the better parameters that give the better tensile and impact strength to the composites, and then preparing composites at

The political situation experienced by Iraq before the events of 2003 that led to the collapse of infrastructure. rebuilding costs were estimated after 2003 by187(million USD) according to the estimates of the basic needs as stated in Five-Year Plan 2010-2014. The difficult in financing projects and the continuous demands for maintenance and operating cost, and working by contemporary styles in different countries, the strategic option is to adopt the government entering the private sector as a partner in the development process. Since public _private partnership (PPP's) is at a germinating stage of development in Iraq, it has been studied the critical success factors(CSF's) in the experiences of countries that have implemented the style

The impacts of numerous important factors on the Energy Absorption (EA) of torsional Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams strengthened with external FRP is the main purpose and innovation of the current research. A total of 81 datasets were collected from previous studies, focused on the investigation of EA behaviour. The impact of nine different parameters on the Torsional EA of RC-beams was examined and evaluated, namely the concrete compressive strength (f’c), steel yield strength (fy), FRP thickness (tFRP), width-to-depth of the beam section (b/h), horizontal (ρh) and vertical (ρv) steel ratio, angle of twist (θu), ultimate torque (Tu), and FRP ultimate strength (fy-FRP). For the evaluation of the energy absorption capacity at di

This study aimed to investigate the influence of longitudinal steel embedded tubes located at the center of the column cross-section on the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) columns. The experimental program consisted of 8 testing pin-ended square sectional columns of 150×150 mm, having a total height of 1400 mm, subjected to eccentric load. The considered variables were the steel square tube sizes of 25, 51 and 68 mm side dimensions and the load eccentricity (50 and 150) mm. RC columns were concealed steel tubes with hollow ratios of 3%, 12% and 20% depending on tube sizes used. The experimental results indicated an improvement in the overall behavior of eccentric columns when steel embedded tubes are used. The maximum gain in

In this paper, the time-history responses of a square plan two-story reinforced concrete prototype building, considering the elastic and inelastic behavior of the materials, were studied numerically. ABAQUS software was used in three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear dynamic analysis to predict the inelastic response of the buildings. Concrete Damage Plasticity Model (CDPM) has been used to model the inelastic behavior of the reinforced concrete building under seismic excitation. The input data included geometric information, material properties, and the ground motion. The building structure was designed only for gravity load according to ACI 318 with