Dam operation and management have become more complex recently because of the need for considering hydraulic structure sustainability and environmental protect on. An Earthfill dam that includes a powerhouse system is considered as a significant multipurpose hydraulic structure. Understanding the effects of running hydropower plant turbines on the dam body is one of the major safety concerns for earthfill dams. In this research, dynamic analysis of earthfill dam, integrated with a hydropower plant system containing six vertical Kaplan turbines (i.e., Haditha dam), is investigated. In the first stage of the study, ANSYS-CFX was used to represent one vertical Kaplan turbine unit by designing a three-dimensional (3-D) finite element (FE) model. This model was used to differentiate between the effect of turbine units’ operation on dam stability in accordance to maximum and minimum reservoir upstream water levels, and the varying flowrates in a fully open gate condition. In the second stage of the analysis, an ANSYS-static modeling approach was used to develop a 3-D FE earthfill dam model. The water pressure pattern determined on the boundary of the running turbine model is transformed into the pressure at the common area of the dam body with turbines. The model is inspected for maximum and minimum upstream water levels. Findings indicate that the water stress fluctuations on the dam body are proportional to the inverse distance from the turbine region. Also, it was found that the cone and outlet of the hydropower turbine system are the most affected regions when turbine is running. Based on the attained results, a systematic operation program was proposed in order to control the running hydropower plant with minimized principal stress at selected nodes on the dam model and the six turbines.
Recently, increasing material prices coupled with more acute environmental awareness and the implementation of regulation has driven a strong movement toward the adoption of sustainable construction technology. In the pavement industry, using low temperature asphalt mixes and recycled concrete aggregate are viewed as effective engineering solutions to address the challenges posed by climate change and sustainable development. However, to date, no research has investigated these two factors simultaneously for pavement material. This paper reports on initial work which attempts to address this shortcoming. At first, a novel treatment method is used to improve the quality of recycled concrete coarse aggregates. Thereafter, the treated recycled
... Show MoreNowadays, cloud computing has attracted the attention of large companies due to its high potential, flexibility, and profitability in providing multi-sources of hardware and software to serve the connected users. Given the scale of modern data centers and the dynamic nature of their resource provisioning, we need effective scheduling techniques to manage these resources while satisfying both the cloud providers and cloud users goals. Task scheduling in cloud computing is considered as NP-hard problem which cannot be easily solved by classical optimization methods. Thus, both heuristic and meta-heuristic techniques have been utilized to provide optimal or near-optimal solutions within an acceptable time frame for such problems. In th
... Show MoreThis research deals with the qualitative and quantitative interpretation of Bouguer gravity anomaly data for a region located to the SW of Qa’im City within Anbar province by using 2D- mapping methods. The gravity residual field obtained graphically by subtracting the Regional Gravity values from the values of the total Bouguer anomaly. The residual gravity field processed in order to reduce noise by applying the gradient operator and 1st directional derivatives filtering. This was helpful in assigning the locations of sudden variation in Gravity values. Such variations may be produced by subsurface faults, fractures, cavities or subsurface facies lateral variations limits. A major fault was predicted to extend with the direction NE-
... Show MoreThere are serious environmental problems in all countries of the world, due to the waste material such as crushed clay bricks (CCB) and in huge quantities resulting from the demolition of buildings. In order to reduce the effects of this problem as well as to preserve natural resources, it is possible to work on recycling (CCB) and to use it in the manufacture of environmentally friendly loaded building units by replacing percentages in coarse aggregate by volume. It can be used as a powder and replacing of percentages in cement by weight and study the effect on the physical and mechanical properties of the concrete and the masonry unit. Evaluation of its performance through workability, dry density, compressive strength, thermal conduct
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