Concrete structures are exposed to aggressive environmental conditions that lead to corrosion of the embedded reinforcement and pre-stressing steel. Consequently, the safety of concrete structures may be compromised, and this requires a significant budgets to repair and maintain critical infrastructure. Prediction of structural safety can lead to significant reductions in maintenance costs by maximizing the impact of investments. The aim of this paper is to establish a framework to assess the reliability of existing post-tensioned concrete bridges. A time-dependent reliability analysis of an existing post-tensioned involving the assessment of Ynys-y-Gwas bridge has been presented in this study. The main cause of failure of this bridge was corrosion of tendons, making it a relevant case study to evaluate the effect of corrosion on bridge safety. Uncertainties associated with material properties, geometry, loads and corrosion parameters are taken into account. The probabilistic models of the uncertainties are combined with a non-linear finite element analysis to study the effect of tendons pitting corrosion on the post-tensioned concrete bridge. The limit state function considered is flexural strength. The Monte-Carlo simulation (MCS) method is used to compute the statistical parameters of the resisting bending moment through a MATLAB code running ABAQUS. It was found that the reliability index for the first year of bridge service life is below the minimum value acceptable for structures. The study confirmed that this bridge was a high risk structure due to its design and location. The proposed framework can be used by engineers and researchers as a tool to support decision for segmental post-tensioned (PT) bridges maintenance since they need for a regular inspection due to their risk to corrosion.
يعد الاقتصاد الياباني احد اكبر الاقتصادات الرأسمالية المتقدمة ويحتل المرتبة الثالثة بعد الاقتصاد الأمريكي واقتصاد الاتحاد الاوربي من حيث حجم الناتج المحلي الإجمالي والذي يكاد يقترب من (5) تريليون دولار سنويا.
لقد ادت التطورات المتلاحقة التي شهدها الاقتصاد العالمي وخاصة في حقل التمويل الدولي خلال العشرين سنة الاخيرة الى تصاعد وارتفاع في حجم وحركه رؤوس الاموال الدولية على اوسع نطاق بحيث ا
... Show MorePredicting vertical stress was indeed useful for controlling geomechanical issues since it allowed for the computation of pore pressure for the formation and the classification of fault regimes. This study provides an in-depth observation of vertical stress prediction utilizing numerous approaches using the Techlog 2015 software. Gardner's method results in incorrect vertical stress values with a problem that this method doesn't start from the surface and instead relies only on sound log data. Whereas the Amoco, Wendt non-acoustic, Traugott, average technique simply needed density log as input and used a straight line as the observed density, this was incorrect for vertical computing stress. The results of these methods
... Show More<p>Photovoltaic (PV) systems are becoming increasingly popular; however, arc faults on the direct current (DC) side are becoming more widespread as a result of the effects of aging as well as the trend toward higher DC voltage levels, posing severe risk to human safety and system stability. The parallel arc faults present higher level of current as compared with the series arc faults, making it more difficult to spot the series arc. In this paper and for the aim of condition monitoring, the features of a DC series arc fault are analyzed by analysing the arc features, performing model’s simulation in PSCAD, and carrying out experimental studies. Various arc models are simulated and investigated; for low current arcs, the heur
... Show MoreThe manual classification of oranges according to their ripeness or flavor takes a long time; furthermore, the classification of ripeness or sweetness by the intensity of the fruit’s color is not uniform between fruit varieties. Sweetness and color are important factors in evaluating the fruits, the fruit’s color may affect the perception of its sweetness. This article aims to study the possibility of predicting the sweetness of orange fruits based on artificial intelligence technology by studying the relationship between the RGB values of orange fruits and the sweetness of those fruits by using the Orange data mining tool. The experiment has applied machine learning algorithms to an orange fruit image dataset and performed a co
... Show MoreMaximizing the net present value (NPV) of oil field development is heavily dependent on optimizing well placement. The traditional approach entails the use of expert intuition to design well configurations and locations, followed by economic analysis and reservoir simulation to determine the most effective plan. However, this approach often proves inadequate due to the complexity and nonlinearity of reservoirs. In recent years, computational techniques have been developed to optimize well placement by defining decision variables (such as well coordinates), objective functions (such as NPV or cumulative oil production), and constraints. This paper presents a study on the use of genetic algorithms for well placement optimization, a ty
... Show MoreA major disadvantage of dose reconstruction by means of thermoluminescence (TL) is the fact that during readout of any TL material exposed to ionizing radiation (i.e., during measuring the glow curve), the radiation-induced signal gets lost. Application of the photo-transferred thermoluminescence phenomenon (PTTL) may offer a solution to this problem. In PTTL, the residual signal that is not destroyed by conventional TL readout (because it comes from deeper electron traps) can be readout through simultaneous stimulation by UV light and heating, allowing to obtain information about the absorbed dose in a second run. The present paper describes the application of PTTL for emergency dose assessment. For
Investment drives the wheel of the development of different developed and developing countries. Sudan is a model for a developing country facing a lot of difficulties in the field of both local and foreign investment. The present study was focused on the problem of poor diversification and efficiency of both local and foreign investment in Sudan. Also, it clarified the important role of administrative supervision to strengthen the efficiency of investment, taking the experience of the Sudan as a model. The researchers used the well-known descriptive and analytical tools (questionnaire, interview, observation) to complete this study. A well designed questionnaire was used. It included all questions that could cover all aspects of
... Show MoreInformation security contributes directly to increase the level of trust between the government’s departments by providing an assurance of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive governmental information. Many threats that are caused mainly by malicious acts can shutdown the egovernment services. Therefore the governments are urged to implement security in e-government projects.
Some modifications were proposed to the security assessment multi-layer model (Sabri model) to be more comprehensive model and more convenient for the Iraqi government. The proposed model can be used as a tool to assess the level of security readiness of government departments, a checklist for the required security measures and as a commo
The aim of the research is to identify learning difficulties and their role in children's perception of self-concept. The researcher adopted the descriptive and analytical approach method in this study. A questionnaire was designed by the researcher to collect some related information such as biodata, family, health, diagnostic and behavioral patterns of the case. In addition, the researcher adopted the scale of learning difficulties for elementary school students prepared by Zaidan Ahmed Al-Sartawi (1995), the scale of student appreciation for the survey of learning difficulties for primary school students by Michael Best, which was translated to the Arabic language by (Saeed Abdullah Debis). The researcher adopted also the Self-Concept
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