In recent years, the search for economic and environmentally friendly alternatives has become a global necessity to achieve sustainability and preserve raw materials. From this concept, natural bitumen (NB) derived from sulphur springs is now one of the most promising alternative energy resources for many applications, especially in asphalt pavement construction. Its low price and abundance characterise NB since sulphur springs produce thousands of tonnes of NB annually and are used in very limited fields. Two main objectives were adopted for this work. The first objective is to examine the virgin NB properties from five sulphur springs and compare them with petroleum asphalt. The second objective is to enhance NB properties by applying heat treatment. The experimental results reveal that heat treatment is highly effective in improving the NB properties. This was confirmed by conducting many tests, such as asphalt, Marshall, SEM-EDX, and indirect tensile strength tests. Based on the experimental test outcomes, virgin NB properties do not conform to asphalt specification limits and are unsuitable for flexible roads. Also, MS-NB significantly affected the mechanical properties of the asphalt mixture, as Marshall's stability increased by 41.3% compared to the conventional mixture. In addition, SS-NB was more effective in moisture damage resistance due to increasing the tensile strength ratio by 5.72 % and provided a higher stiffness index than the conventional mixture by 40.36%. In conclusion, the treated NB can successfully be used as a binder material in hot asphalt mixtures. ABSTRAK: Beberapa tahun kebelakangan, pencarian alternatif baharu ekonomi dan mesra alam telah menjadi satu keperluan global bagi mencapai kemampanan dan memelihara bahan mentah. Melalui konsep ini, bitumen asli (NB) yang diperoleh daripada mata air sulfur kini merupakan satu sumber tenaga alternatif yang berguna bagi digunakan dalam pelbagai aplikasi, terutamanya dalam pembinaan turapan asfalt. NB dicirikan oleh harga yang rendah dan kelimpahannya kerana mata air sulfur menghasilkan beribu-ribu tan NB setiap tahun dan digunakan dalam bidang terhad. Dua objektif utama telah dipakai untuk kajian ini. Objektif pertama adalah memeriksa sifat NB dara daripada lima mata air sulfur dan membandingkannya dengan asfalt petroleum. Objektif kedua adalah meningkatkan sifat NB dengan menggunakan rawatan haba. Dapatan eksperimen mendedahkan bahawa rawatan haba sangat berkesan dalam meningkatkan sifat NB. Ini disahkan dengan menjalankan pelbagai ujian, seperti ujian asfalt, ujian Marshall, ujian SEM-EDX, dan ujian kekuatan tegangan tidak langsung. Berdasarkan dapatan eksperimen, sifat NB dara tidak mematuhi had spesifikasi asfalt dan tidak sesuai untuk jalan fleksibel. Selain itu, MS-NB mempunyai kesan ketara pada sifat mekanikal campuran asfalt kerana kestabilan Marshalls meningkat sebanyak 41.3% berbanding campuran konvensional. Tambahan, SS-NB lebih berkesan dalam rintangan kerosakan lembapan kerana meningkatkan nisbah kekuatan tegangan sebanyak 5.72 % dan memberikan indeks kekukuhan yang lebih tinggi daripada campuran konvensional sebanyak 40.36%. Kesimpulannya, NB yang dirawat boleh berjaya digunakan sebagai bahan pengikat dalam campuran asfalt panas.
Urinary stones are one of the most common painful disorders of the urinary system. Four new technologies have transformed the treatment of urinary stones: Electrohydraulic lithotripsy, ultrasonic lithotripsy, extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, and laser lithotripsy.The purpose of this study is to determine whether pulsed holmium laser energy is an effective method for fragmenting urinary tract stones in vitro, and to determine whether stone composition affects the efficacy of holmium laser lithotripsy. Human urinary stones of known composition with different sizes, shapes and colors were used for this study. The weight and the size of each stone were measured. The surgical laser system which used in our study is Ho:YAG laser(2100nm)
... Show MoreLaser assisted skin wound closure offers many distinct advantages over conventional closure
techniques. The objective of this in vitro experimental study, carried out at the Institute of Laser for
Postgraduate Studies/Baghdad University, was to determine the effectiveness of 980 nm diode laser in
welding of human skin wounds. Multiple 3-4 cm long full thickness incisions in a specimen of human
skin obtained from the discarded panniculus of an Abdominoplasty operation were tried to be laser
welded using a 4 mm spot diameter laser beam from a 980 nm diode laser at different laser parameters
and modes of action. The tensile strength at the weld site was analyzed experimentally. Although laser
assisted wound welding did
The important device in the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is the Sink Node (SN). That is used to store, collect and analyze data from every sensor node in the network. Thus the main role of SN in WSN makes it a big target for traffic analysis attack. Therefore, securing the SN position is a substantial issue. This study presents Security for Mobile Sink Node location using Dynamic Routing Protocol called (SMSNDRP), in order to increase complexity for adversary trying to discover mobile SN location. In addition to that, it minimizes network energy consumption. The proposed protocol which is applied on WSN framework consists of 50 nodes with static and mobile SN. The results havw shown in each round a dynamic change in the route to reach mobi
... Show MoreThe main objective of this work was to adopt an environmentally friendly technology with enhanced results. The technology of magnetic water (MW) treatment system can be used in concrete mixture production instead of potable water (PW) to improve both workability and strength. Two types of concrete were adopted: normal concreter production with two grades 25 and 35 MPa and the self-compacted concrete (SCC) with 35 MPa grade. The concrete mixes containing MW instead of PW results showed that, for 25 MPa grade, an improvement in a compressive strength of 15.1, 14.8, and 10.2% was achieved for 7, 28, and 90 days, respectively. For 35 MPa grade, an improvement of 13.6, 11.5, and
In this study, a one-dimensional model represented by Butler-Volmer-Monod (BVM) model was proposed to compute the anode overpotential and current density in a mediator-less MFC system. The system was fueled with various organic loadings of real field petroleum refinery oily sludge to optimize the favorable organic loading for biomass to operate the suggested system. The increase in each organic loading showed higher resistance to electrons transport to the anode represented by ohmic loss. On the contrary, both activation and mass transfer losses exhibited a noticeable decrement upon the increased organic loadings. However, current density was improved throughout all increased loads achieving a maximum current density of 5.2 A/m3
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study was to find out the connection between the water parameters that were examined in the laboratory and the water index acquired from the examination of the satellite image of the study area. This was accomplished by analysing the Landsat-8 satellite picture results as well as the geographic information system (GIS). The primary goal of this study is to develop a model for the chemical and physical characteristics of the Al-Abbasia River in Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Governorate. The water parameters employed in this investigation are as follows: (PH, EC, TDS, TSS, Na, Mg, K, SO4, Cl, and NO3). To collect the samples, ten sampling locations were identified, and the satellite image was obtained on the
... Show MoreThe γ- mixing ratios of γ- transitions from levels of 56Fe populated in reaction are calculated using least square fitting program for the first time in the case of pure and mixed transitions the results obtained have been compound with γ Values determined by other methods .The comparison shows that the agreement is good this confirmed the valilety of this method in calculating of values for such γ- transitions key word: γ- transition ,Multipole mixing ratios ,Least square fitting method.
The objective of this study is to apply Artificial Neural Network for heat transfer analysis of shell-and-tube heat exchangers widely used in power plants and refineries. Practical data was obtained by using industrial heat exchanger operating in power generation department of Dura refinery. The commonly used Back Propagation (BP) algorithm was used to train and test networks by divided the data to three samples (training, validation and testing data) to give more approach data with actual case. Inputs of the neural network include inlet water temperature, inlet air temperature and mass flow rate of air. Two outputs (exit water temperature to cooling tower and exit air temperature to second stage of air compressor) were taken in ANN.
... Show MoreThis investigation aimed to explain the mechanism of MFCA by applying this method on air-cooled engine factory which was suffering from high production cost. The results of this study revealed that MFCA is a useful tool to identify losses and inefficiencies of the production process. It is found that the factory is suffering from high losses due to material energy and system losses. In conclusion, it is calculated that system losses are the highest among all the losses due to inefficient use of available production capacity.