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.
In this study, biodiesel was prepared from chicken fat via a transesterification reaction using Mussel shells as a catalyst. Pretreatment of chicken fat was carried out using non‐catalytic esterification to reduce the free fatty acid content from 36.28 to 0.96 mg KOH/g oil using an ethanol/ fat mole ratio equal to 115:1. In the transesterification reaction, the studied variables were methanol: oil mole ratio in the range of (6:1 ‐ 30:1), catalyst loading in the range of (9‐15) wt%, reaction temperature (55‐75 °C), and reaction time (1‐7) h. The heterogeneous alkaline catalyst was greenly synthesized from waste mussel shells throughout a calcin
Pure and Fe-doped zinc oxide nanocrystalline films were prepared
via a sol–gel method using -
C for 2 h.
The thin films were prepared and characterized by X-ray diffraction
(XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), field emission scanning
electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and UV- visible spectroscopy. The
XRD results showed that ZnO has hexagonal wurtzite structure and
the Fe ions were well incorporated into the ZnO structure. As the Fe
level increased from 2 wt% to 8 wt%, the crystallite size reduced in
comparison with the pure ZnO. The transmittance spectra were then
recorded at wavelengths ranging from 300 nm to 1000 nm. The
optical band gap energy of spin-coated films also decreased as Fe
doping concentra
This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From
... Show MoreOil recovery could be impacted by the relation between vertical permeability (Kv) and horizontal permeability (Kh) (Kv/Kh). 4816 plugs that have been getting hold of 18 wells of Mishrif formation in the West Qurna oilfield were used. Kv/Kh data provided some scatter, but the mean is ~1. Kv/Kh =1 was used for the Petrel model before upscaling according to the heterogeneity of each layer.
Kv/Kh values for Mishrif Formation in West Qurna Oilfield are 0.8 for relatively homogeneous, 0.4 for heterogeneous rock, and 0.1 for cap rocks (CRII).
Eclipse TM was used for reservoir simulation. PVT and SCAL data e
... Show MoreFor the design of a deep foundation, piles are presumed to transfer the axial and lateral loads into the ground. However, the effects of the combined loads are generally ignored in engineering practice since there are uncertainties to the precise definition of soil–pile interactions. Hence, for technical discussions of the soil–pile interactions due to dynamic loads, a three-dimensional finite element model was developed to evaluate the soil pile performance based on the 1 g shaking table test. The static loads consisted of 50% of the allowable vertical pile capacity and 50% of the allowable lateral pile capacity. The dynamic loads were taken from the recorded data of the Kobe e
This paper analyzes the effect of scaling-up model and acceleration history on seismic response of closed-ended pipe pile using a finite element modeling approach and the findings of 1 g shaking table tests of a pile embedded in dry and saturated soils. A number of scaling laws were used to create the numerical modeling according to the data obtained from 1 g shake table tests performed in the laboratory. The current study found that the behaviors of the scaled models, in general have similar trends. From numerical modeling on both the dry and saturated sands, the normalized lateral displacement, bending moment, and vertical displacement of piles with scale factors of 2 and 35 are less than those of the pile with a scale factor of 1 and the
... Show MoreThis study tackles a fourth-order inverse problem involving a cantilever beam with nonlocal conditions to simultaneously calculate the beam’s displacement and an unknown time-dependent coefficient. A finite difference approach is suggested to discretize the hyperbolic fourth-order equation. A stability analysis for the proposed scheme is also provided. The indirect problem is the minimization of the misfit function. The goal of the minimization algorithm is to reduce the gap between the measured (noisy) data and the numerical computed solution provided by the model. To achieve stable results, Tikhonov’s regularization technique is employed, and two numerical test examples are shown to illustrate the suggested scheme's reliabilit
... Show MorePolycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex endocrine–metabolic disorder characterized by hyperandrogenism, ovulatory dysfunction, insulin resistance, and chronic inflammation resulting in reproductive and metabolic complications. Traditional metformin therapy improves insulin sensitivity, while newer dual incretin agonists, such as tirzepatide, may offer broader metabolic and ovarian protection. The objective of this study is to investigate whether tirzepatide could alter hormonal parameters, metabolism, inflammation, and histopathology of a testosterone propionate–induced PCOS rat model compared with metformin. Thirty prepubertal female Wistar rats were divided into five groups (n = 6). PCOS was induced by testosterone propionate (1
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