Dam and powerhouse operation sustainability is a major concern from the hydraulic engineering perspective. Powerhouse operation is one of the main sources of vibrations in the dam structure and hydropower plant; thus, the evaluation of turbine performance at different water pressures is important for determining the sustainability of the dam body. Draft tube turbines run under high pressure and suffer from connection problems, such as vibrations and pressure fluctuation. Reducing the pressure fluctuation and minimizing the principal stress caused by undesired components of water in the draft tube turbine are ongoing problems that must be resolved. Here, we conducted a comprehensive review of studies performed on dams, powerhouses, a

In this paper, a new equivalent lumped parameter model is proposed for describing the vibration of beams under the moving load effect. Also, an analytical formula for calculating such vibration for low-speed loads is presented. Furthermore, a MATLAB/Simulink model is introduced to give a simple and accurate solution that can be used to design beams subjected to any moving loads, i.e., loads of any magnitude and speed. In general, the proposed Simulink model can be used much easier than the alternative FEM software, which is usually used in designing such beams. The obtained results from the analytical formula and the proposed Simulink model were compared with those obtained from Ansys R19.0, and very good agreement has been shown. I

In recent decades, tremendous success has been achieved in the advancement of chemical admixtures for Portland cement concrete. Most efforts have concentrated on improving the properties of concrete and studying the factors that influence on these properties. Since the compressive strength is considered a valuable property and is invariably a vital element of the structural design, especially high early strength development which can be provide more benefits in concrete production, such as reducing construction time and labor and saving the formwork and energy. As a matter of fact, it is influenced as a most properties of concrete by several factors including water-cement ratio, cement type and curing methods employed.
Because of acce

Frequency equations for rectangular plate model with and without the thermoelastic effect for the cases are: all edges are simply supported, all edges are clamped and two opposite edges are clamped others are simply supported.   These were obtained through direct method for simply supported ends using Hamilton’s principle with minimizing Ritz method to total energy (strain and kinetic) for the rest of the boundary conditions. The effect of restraining edges on the frequency and mode shape has been considered. Distributions temperatures have been considered as a uniform temperature the effect of developed thermal stresses due to restrictions of ends conditions on vibration characteristics   of a plate with different

Under-reamed piles defined by having one or more bulbs have the potential for sizeable major sides over conventional straight-sided piles, most of the studies on under-reamed piles have been conducted on the experimental side, while theoretical studies, such as the finite element method, have been mainly confined to conventional straight-sided piles. On the other hand, although several laboratory and experimental studies have been conducted to study the behavior of under-reamed piles, few numer­ical studies have been carried out to simulate the piles' performance. In addition, there is no research to compare and evaluate the behavior of these piles under dynamic loading. Therefore, this study aimed to numerically investigate bearing capaci

In this work, an estimation of the key rate of measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) protocol in free space was performed. The examined free space links included satellite-earth downlink, uplink and intersatellite link. Various attenuation effects were considered such as diffraction, atmosphere, turbulence and the efficiency of the detection system. Two cases were tested: asymptotic case with infinite number of decoy states and one-decoy state case. The estimated key rate showed the possibility of applying MDI-QKD in earth-satellite and intersatellite links, offering longer single link distance to be covered.

Collapsing building structures during recent earthquakes, especially in Northern and Eastern Kurdistan, including the 2003 earthquake in Cewlig; the 2011 earthquake in Van; and the 2017 earthquake near Halabja province, has raised several concerns about the safety of pre-seismic code buildings and emergency facilities in Erbil city. The seismic vulnerability assessment of the hospital buildings as emergency facilities is one of the necessities which have a critical role in the recovery period following earthquakes. This research aims to study in detail and to extend the present knowledge about the seismic vulnerability of the Rizgary public hospital building in Erbil city, which was constructed before releasing the seism

Background: obesity is a major global health problem with more than 200 million obese men and almost 300 million obese women. Melatonin is a well-known molecule for its involvement in circadian rhythm regulation and has multiple pathological actions including control of appetite, sleep wake cycle and metabolic syndrome.

Aim: to estimate the effect of melatonin supplements on obese patients on a calorie restricted diet in comparison to patients on lifestyle measures only in the form of weight loss, waist circumference and sleep quality.

Subjects and Method: one hundred patients with body mass index > 24 were collected, fifty patients were starte