Reconstruction project management in the cities of Mosul, Anbar, and Tikrit, in Iraq still faces major obstacles that impede the comprehensive performance of these projects. It is thus necessary to improve the arising challenge estimation in the implementation of reconstruction projects and evaluate their components: time, cost, quality, and scope. This study used the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize major and minor criteria in the influential causes of challenges and formulate a mathematical model to help decision-makers estimate them. Using the Super Decisions software, the final results indicated that changes in scope reached 40.8%, which is the greatest difficulty, followed by changes in cost at 27.6%, changes in time at 13.5%, and changes in quality at 18.11%. The results of the essential subcriteria also indicated that underlying issues still exist in the Iraqi construction industry and that quick solutions are vital. Five mathematical equations were formulated to develop a model to estimate changes that introduce challenges in time, cost, quality, and scope and so to help decision-makers assess the level of these changes and identify challenges. This study recommended addressing these variables through realistic administrative and methodological strategies to consider changes, challenges, and available opportunities.
A laboratory investigation of six different tests were conducted on silty clay soil spiked with lead in concentrations of 1500 mg/kg. A constant DC voltage gradient of 1 V/cm was applied for all these tests with duration of 7 days remediation process for each test. Different purging solutions and addition configurations, i.e. injection wells, were investigated experimentally to enhance the removal of lead from Iraqi soil during electro-kinetic remediation process. The experimental results showed that the overall removal efficiency of lead for tests conducted with distilled water, 0.1 M acetic acid, 0.2 M EDTA and 1 M ammonium citrate as the purging solutions were equal to 18 %, 37 %, 42 %, and 29 %, respectively. H
... Show MoreThe pumping station became widely used in many fields. Free surface vortices at intakes of pumps are not favorable. It may cause noise, excessive vibration, damage to the pumping structure, reduction in efficiency and flow for hydro-turbines, etc. One of the important problems encountered during the pump intake design is the depth of submergence and other design parameters to avoid strong free-surface vortices formation. This study aims to compute the critical submergence depth with some geometrical and hydraulic limitations by using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) package. The mathematical model was validated with a laboratory model that had been conducted. The model of three intake pipes was investigated under five d
... Show MoreGround-based active optical sensors (GBAOS) have been successfully used in agriculture to predict crop yield potential (YP) early in the season and to improvise N rates for optimal crop yield. However, the models were found weak or inconsistent due to environmental variation especially rainfall. The objectives of the study were to evaluate if GBAOS could predict YP across multiple locations, soil types, cultivation systems, and rainfall differences. This study was carried from 2011 to 2013 on corn (Zea mays L.) in North Dakota, and in 2017 in potatoes in Maine. Six N rates were used on 50 sites in North Dakota and 12 N rates on two sites, one dryland and one irrigated, in Maine. Two active GBAOS used for this study were GreenSeeker and Holl
... Show MoreReinforcing asphalt concrete with polyester fibers considered as an active remedy to alleviate the harmful impact of fatigue deterioration. This study covers the investigation of utilizing two shapes of fibers size, 6.35 mm by 3.00 mm and 12.70 mm by 3.00 mm with mutual concentrations equal to 0.25 %, 0.50 % and 0.75 % by weight of mixture. Composition of asphalt mixture consists of different optimum (40-50) asphalt cement content, 12.50 mm nominal aggregate maximum size with limestone dust as a filler. Following the traditional asphalt cement and aggregate tests, three essential test were carried out on mixtures, namely: Marshall test (105 cylindrical specimens), indirect tensile strength test (21 cylindrical specimens)
... Show MoreThe main objective of this study is to characterize the main factors which may affect the behavior of segmental prestressed concrete beams comprised of multi segments. The 3-D finite element program ABAQUS was utilized. The experimental work was conducted on twelve simply supported segmental prestressed concrete beams divided into three groups depending on the precast segments number. They all had an identical total length of 3150mm, but each had different segment numbers (9, 7, and 5 segments), in other words, different segment lengths. To simulate the genuine fire disasters, nine beams were exposed to high-temperature flame for one hour, the selected temperatures were 300°C (572°F), 500°C (932°F) and 700°C (1292°F) as recomm
... Show MoreIn this paper, we calculate and measure the SNR theoretically and experimental for digital full duplex optical communication systems for different ranges in free space, the system consists of transmitter and receiver in each side. The semiconductor laser (pointer) was used as a carrier wave in free space with the specification is 5mW power and 650nm wavelength. The type of optical detector was used a PIN with area 1mm2 and responsively 0.4A/W for this wavelength. The results show a high quality optical communication system for different range from (300-1300)m with different bit rat (60-140)kbit/sec is achieved with best values of the signal to noise ratio (SNR).
The ongoing research to improve the clinical outcome of titanium implants has resulted in the implementation of multiple approaches to deliver osteogenic growth factors accelerating and sustaining osseointegration. Here we show the presentation of human bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP-7) adsorbed to titanium discs coated with poly(ethyl acrylate) (PEA). We have previously shown that PEA promotes fibronectin organization into nanonetworks exposing integrin- and growth-factor-binding domains, allowing a synergistic interaction at the integrin/growth factor receptor level. Here, titanium discs were coated with PEA and fibronectin and then decorated with ng/mL doses of BMP-7. Human mesenchymal stem cells were used to investigate cellular resp
... Show MoreDiesel engine oil was subjected to thermal oxidization (TO) for six periods of time (0 h, 24 h, 48 h, 72 h, 96 h, and 120 h) and was subsequently characterized by terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). The THz refractive index generally increased with oxidation time. The measurement method illustrated the potential of THz-TDS when a fixed setup with a single cuvette is used. A future miniaturized setup installed in an engine would be an example of a fixed setup. For the refractive index, there were highly significant differences among the oxidation times across most of the 0.3–1.7 THz range.
Due to increasing cost of asphalt binder, significant economic savings can be realized by using the amount from reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in the production of new hot mix asphalt (HMA). Moreover, this is an environmentally friendly option as it reduces the demand for virgin materials. It has to be remarked that in Iraq RAP is not used in the production of HMA and this valuable material is mostly degraded for use in lower value applications. Four mixtures were designed, which contains three different percent RAP, it is (0%, 5%, 15%) with asphalt grade (40-50) and (25%) with asphalt grade (60-70), it has been changed the grade of asphalt when adding RAP (25%) to compensate for the aged binder in the RAP when adding to mixture. All type
... Show MoreReinforced concrete (RC) beams containing a longitudinal cavity have become an innovative development and advantage for economic purposes of light-weight members without largely affecting their resistance against the applied loads. This type of openings can also be used for maintenance purposes and usage space of communication lines, pipelines, etc. RC beams are primarily loaded in the plane of the members, which are two-dimensional in a plane stress state and the dominant structural behaviours include bending, shear, or combination of both. In the present study, six numerical models of RC beams with and without openings were simulated by using commercial finite element software ANSYS to evaluate the structural behaviours of those b
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