Traditional tree management is laborious and costly, thus this work aimed to study the performance of two different types of frond cutting saws (reciprocating saw and vibrating saw) and examine the two saws on five date palm varieties. Four parameters were examined, including cutting time for a single frond, the power needed for cutting a single frond, frond cutting productivity expressed as tree/h, and vibration conveyed to the worker’s hand. A field experiment was designed according to the nested randomized complete block design, including five date palm varieties as the main plot and the type of saw as a sub-plot. Means were compared using the least significant differences (LSD 0.05). Results indicated that Bream variety required the least time for frond cutting. The reciprocating saw exhibited efficiency in saving the time required for frond cutting, while the vibrating saw took significantly longer time needed for cutting a single frond. The highest number of fronds cut in one hour was recorded in Bream variety, again significantly higher than the number of other studied varieties. Moreover, the reciprocating saw achieved significantly higher productivity than the vibrating one, indicating that the productivity of the reciprocating saw is almost three times more than the vibrating saw. Maximum productivity was recorded in Bream variety, while the least was recorded in Tebarzal using the vibrating saw. Moreover, results indicate that the variety and the type of saw have a vital role in productivity since as the thickness of a frond increases, the cutting takes more time and ultimately reduces the number of date palms to be pruned per hour. Results also exhibited that vibrating saw reduced the consumed energy during frond cutting. Additionally, results revealed that the minimum power consumed by a vibrating saw was in Bream variety, while Tebarzal consumed the upmost energy when a reciprocating saw was used. Maximum vibration on X-axis was reported in Bream variety when a vibrating saw was used. Additionally, the reciprocating saw exhibited the highest vibration compared with the vibrating saw. Moreover, the reciprocating saw caused the lowest vibration in Tebarzal variety. Results indicated that the vibration imposed by both saws reached the maximum value in Bream variety. The vibrating saw resulted in the higher vibration toward Z axis, while the Reciprocating saw resulted in higher vibration toward X axis, which was more than eight times that recorded by the vibrating saw. Results indicate that vibration toward the Y axis increased significantly in Bream variety compared with others. Again, as in the situation with X and Z axis, the reciprocating saw exhibited the highest vibration compared to that resulted from using a vibrating saw which was more than three times the vibration caused by the vibrating saw.
The increase in population resulted in an increase in the consumption of water. The present work investigates the performance of a recycling solar- powered greywater treatment system for the purposes of irrigation, used to reduce the amount of waste grey water and reduce electricity consumption and reduce the costs of constructing large scale water treatment plants. The system consumes about 3814W per hour and provides water treatment about 1.4 m3 per day. The proposed system is designed to residential, office and governmental buildings application. Tests are conducted in an office building at the Ministry of Science and Technology site in Baghdad. Laboratorial water samples testing analyses are co
... Show MoreIn the present study, an attempt has been made to experimentally investigate the flexural performance of ten simply supported reinforced concrete gable roof beams, including solid control specimen (i.e., without openings) and nine beams with web openings of different dimensions and configurations. The nine beams with openings have identical reinforcement details. All beams were monotonically loaded to failure under mid-span loading. The main variables were the number of the created openings, the total area of the created openings, and the inclination angle of the posts between openings. Of interest is the load-carrying capacity, cracking resistance and propagation, deformability, failure mode, and strain development that represent the behav
... Show MoreDue to the energy crisis and the stringent environmental regulations, diesel engines are offering good hope for automotive vehicles. However, a lot of work is needed to reduce the diesel exhaust emissions and give the way for full utilization of the diesel fuel’s excellent characteristics.
A kind of cetane number improver has been proposed and tested to be used with diesel fuel as ameans of reducing exhaust emissions. The addition of (2-ethylhexyl nitrate) was designed to raise fuel cetane number to three stages, 50, 52 and 55 compared to the used conventional diesel fuel whose CN was 48.5. The addition of CN improver results in the decre
... Show MoreAbstract: Polarization beam splitter (PBS) integrated waveguides are the key components in the receiver of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. Their function is to analyze the polarization of polarized light and separate the transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) polarizations into different waveguides. In this paper, a performance study of polarization beam splitters based on horizontal slot waveguide has been investigated for a wavelength of . PBS based on horizontal slot waveguide structure shows a polarization extinction ratio for quasi-TE and quasi-TM modes larger than with insertion loss below and a bandwidth of . Also, the fabrication tolerance of the structure is analyzed.<
... Show MoreThe present study dealt with the removal of methylene blue from wastewater by using peanut hulls (PNH) as adsorbent. Two modes of operation were used in the present work, batch mode and inverse fluidized bed mode. In batch experiment, the effect of peanut hulls doses 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16 g, with constant initial pH =5.6, concentration 20 mg/L and particle size 2-3.35 mm were studied. The results showed that the percent removal of methylene blue increased with the increase of peanut hulls dose. Batch kinetics experiments showed that equilibrium time was about 3 hours, isotherm models (Langmuir and Freundlich) were used to correlate these results. The results showed that the (Freundlich) model gave the best fitting for adsorption capacity. D
... Show MoreThis paper aims to explain the effect of workplace respect on employee performance at Abu Ghraib Dairy Factory (AGDF). For achieving the research aim, the analytical and descriptive approach was chosen using a questionnaire tool for collecting data. It covers 22 items; ten of them for the workplace respect variable and twelve items for the employee performance variable. The research population involved human resources who work at AGDF in Baghdad within two administrative levels (top and middle). We conducted a purposive stratified sample approach. It was distributed 70 questionnaire forms, and 65 forms were received. However, six of them had missing data and did not include in the final data analysis. The main results are t
... Show MoreABSTRACT
Two compounds were isolated from the fruit part of Rhus coriaria that grow wildly or cultivated in the north of Iraq. The compounds were separated by preparative high-Performance Liquid Chromatography and their structures were established based on detailed spectroscopic techniques like FTIR and LC-MS/MS.
Keywords: Rhus coriaria, Preparative HPLC, LC-MSMS, FTIR