Gypseous soil, which covers vast area in west, middle, east and south west regions of Iraq exhibit acceptable strength properties when dry, but it is weak and collapsible when it comes in touch with moisture from rain or other sources. When such weak soil is adopted for earth reinforced embankment construction, it may exhibit hazardous situation. Gypseous soil was investigated for the optimum liquid asphalt requirements of both cutback and emulsion using the one-dimensional unconfined compression strength test. The optimum fluid content was 13% (7% of cutback with 6% water content), and 17% (9% of emulsion with 8% water content). A laboratory model box of 50x50x25 cm was used as a representative of embankment; soil or asphalt stabilized soil have been compacted in five layers at maximum dry density (modified compaction) and an aluminum reinforcement strips were introduced between layers and connected to the facing strips. The model was subjected to cyclic loading and the lateral deformation of facing strips and the vertical deformation were detected at different stages of loading cycles and different height of the facing strips using LVDT. The reference embankment model was that of reinforced pure soil under absorbed condition. For asphalt-stabilized soil, the cutback asphalt stabilized- soil model exhibit improvement in load carrying capacity by nine folds. It shows a reduction of 23% in vertical displacement under sustained load of 436 repetitions. For emulsion-stabilized soil, the reduction in vertical displacement was 38.5% under a sustained load of 950 cycles. The load carrying capacity was improved by twenty folds. The lateral displacement at the upper first and third layers were lower by 0.55% and 1.9% respectively when compared to cutback asphalt stabilized model
In this paper, numerical and experimental studies on the elastic behavior of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) with stiffeners in the GFRP section's web (to prevent local buckling) are presented. The GFRP profiles were connected to the concrete deck slab by shear connectors. Two full-scale simply supported composite beams (with and without stiffeners) were tested under impact load (three-point load) to assess its structural response. The results proved that the maximum impact force, maximum deflection, damping time, and damping ratio of the composite beam were affected by the GFRP stiffeners. The experimental results indicated that the damping ratio and deflection were diminished compare
... Show MoreIn this paper, a harvested prey-predator model involving infectious disease in prey is considered. The existence, uniqueness and boundedness of the solution are discussed. The stability analysis of all possible equilibrium points are carried out. The persistence conditions of the system are established. The behavior of the system is simulated and bifurcation diagrams are obtained for different parameters. The results show that the existence of disease and harvesting can give rise to multiple attractors, including chaos, with variations in critical parameters.
In this experimental and numerical analysis, three varieties of under-reamed piles comprising one bulb were used. The location of the bulb changes from pile to pile, as it is found at the bottom, center, and top of the pile, respectively.
Pushover analysis is an efficient method for the seismic evaluation of buildings under severe earthquakes. This paper aims to develop and verify the pushover analysis methodology for reinforced concrete frames. This technique depends on a nonlinear representation of the structure by using SAP2000 software. The properties of plastic hinges will be defined by generating the moment-curvature analysis for all the frame sections (beams and columns). The verification of the technique above was compared with the previous study for two-dimensional frames (4-and 7-story frames). The former study leaned on automatic identification of positive and negative moments, where the concrete sections and steel reinforcement quantities the
... Show MoreGypseous soils are considered one of the most problematic soils. The skirted foundation is an alternative technology that works to improve the bearing capacity and reduce settlement. This paper investigates the use of square skirted foundations resting on gypseous soil subjected to concentric and eccentric vertical load with eccentricity values of 4, 8, and 17 mm in 16 experimental model tests. To obtain the results by using this type of foundation, a small-scale physical model was designed to obtain the load–settlement behavior of the square skirted foundation; the dimension of the square footing is 100 mm × 100 mm with 1 mm thickness, the skirt depth (
This study aimed at evaluating the torsional capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) beams externally wrapped with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials. An analytical model was described and used as a new computational procedure based on the softened truss model (STM) to predict the torsional behavior of RC beams strengthened with FRP. The proposed analytical model was validated with the existing experimental data for rectangular sections strengthened with FRP materials and considering torque-twist relationship and crack pattern at failure. The confined concrete behavior, in the case of FRP wrapping, was considered in the constitutive laws of concrete in the model. Then, an efficient algorithm was developed in MATLAB environment t
... Show MoreGypseous soils are widely distributed and especially in Iraq where arid area of hot climatic is present. These soils are considered as problematic soils; therefore this work attends to improve the geotechnical properties of such soil and reduce the dangers of collapse due to wetting process. In this research, undisturbed soil sample of 30 % gypsum content from Karbala city is used. The Single Oedometer collapse test is used in order to investigate the collapse characteristics of natural soil and after treatment with 3%, 6%, 9%, 12% and 15% of Cutback Asphalt. Moreover, two selected additive percentages (9% and 12%) are used to evaluate the suitability of using the Cutback Asphalt for improvement of the bearing capacity o
... Show MoreFatigue cracking is the most common distress in road pavement. It is mainly due to the increase in the number of load repetition of vehicles, particularly those with high axle loads, and to the environmental conditions. In this study, four-point bending beam fatigue testing has been used for control and modified mixture under various micro strain levels of (250 μƐ, 400 μƐ, and 750 μƐ) and 5HZ. The main objective of the study is to provide a comparative evaluation of pavement resistance to the phenomenon of fatigue cracking between modified asphalt concrete and conventional asphalt concrete mixes (under the influence of three percentage of Silica fumes 1%, 2%, 3% by the weight of asphalt content), and (chan
... Show More