This study was prepared to investigate the performance and behavior of concrete thrust blocks supporting pipe fittings. In the water distribution networks, it is always necessary to change the path of the pipes at different degrees or to create new branches. In these regions, an unbalanced force called the thrust force is generated. In order to counter this force, these regions are supported with concrete blocks. In this article, the system components (soil, pipe with its bend and thrust blocks) have been numerically modeled and simulated by the ABAQUS CAE/2019 software program in order to study the behavior and stability of the thrust block with different burial conditions (several burial depths) by the soil under the influence of the thrust force. Accordingly, 45° bend angles were studied with a specified pipe diameter placed on soil with known properties under the influence of internal hydrostatic test pressure. The obtained results that were relied upon to describe the behavior and stability of the block are (the lateral displacement of the block in the direction of the thrust force, as well as the vertical displacement of the block in addition to the Von Mises stresses transmitted by the block to the soil). It was concluded that the case in which the block is fully supported from its back side represents the optimum state of the block as it provides marginal sliding of the block and the least transmitted stress to the soil. It was also concluded that the transition from the first case (thrust block without soil behind it) to the second case (a quarter of the block is supported by soil), in which the maximum change in the performance of the concrete block was recorded, but after shifting to the other cases, the effect was reduced gradually.
In this study water quality was indicated in terms of Water Quality Index that was determined through summarizing multiple parameters of water test results. This index offers a useful representation of the overall quality of water for public or any intended use as well as indicating pollution, water quality management and decision making. The application of Water Quality Index
(WQI) with sixteen physicochemical water quality parameters was performed to evaluate the quality of Tigris River water for drinking usage. This was done by subjecting the water samples collected from eight stations in Baghdad city during the period 2004-2010 to comprehensive physicochemical analysis. The sixteen physicochemical parameters included: Turbidity, A
Pulsed liquid laser ablation is considered a green method for the synthesis of nanostructures because there are no byproducts formed after the ablation. In this paper, a fiber laser of wavelength 1.064 µm, peak power of 1 mJ, pulse duration of 120 ns, and repetition rate of 20 kHz, was used to produce carbon nanostructures including carbon nanospheres and carbon nanorods from the ablation of asphalt in ethanol at ablation speeds of (100, 75, 50, 10 mm/s). The morphology, composition and optical properties of the synthesized samples were studied experimentally using FESEM, HRTEM, EDS, and UV-vis spectrophotometer. Results showed that the band gap energy decreased with decreasing the ablation speed (increasing the ablation time), the mi
... Show MorePortland cement is considered the most involved product in environmental pollution. It is responsible for about 10% of global CO2 emissions [1]. Limestone dust is a by-product of limestone plants and it is produced in thousands of tons annually as waste material. To fulfill sustainability requirements, concrete production is recommended to reduce Portland cement usage with the use of alternative or waste materials. The production of sustainable high strength concrete by using nanomaterials is one of the aims of this study. Limestone dust in 12, 16, and 20% by weight of cement replaced cement in this study. The study was divided into two parts: the first was devoted to the investigation of the best percentage of replacement of waste
... Show MoreIn this study, a fast block matching search algorithm based on blocks' descriptors and multilevel blocks filtering is introduced. The used descriptors are the mean and a set of centralized low order moments. Hierarchal filtering and MAE similarity measure were adopted to nominate the best similar blocks lay within the pool of neighbor blocks. As next step to blocks nomination the similarity of the mean and moments is used to classify the nominated blocks and put them in one of three sub-pools, each one represents certain nomination priority level (i.e., most, less & least level). The main reason of the introducing nomination and classification steps is a significant reduction in the number of matching instances of the pixels belong to the c
... Show MoreFractal image compression depends on representing an image using affine transformations. The main concern for researches in the discipline of fractal image compression (FIC) algorithm is to decrease encoding time needed to compress image data. The basic technique is that each portion of the image is similar to other portions of the same image. In this process, there are many models that were developed. The presence of fractals was initially noticed and handled using Iterated Function System (IFS); that is used for encoding images. In this paper, a review of fractal image compression is discussed with its variants along with other techniques. A summarized review of contributions is achieved to determine the fulfillment of fractal ima
... Show MoreIn wireless broadband communications using single-carrier interleave division multiple access (SC-IDMA) systems, efficient multiuser detection (MUD) classes that make use of joint hybrid decision feedback equalization (HDFE)/ frequency decision-feedback equalization (FDFE) and interference cancellation (IC) techniques, are proposed in conjunction with channel coding to deal with several users accessing the multipath fading channels. In FDFE-IDMA, the feedforward (FF) and feedback (FB) filtering operations of FDFE, which use to remove intersymbol interference (ISI), are implemented by Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs), while in HDFE-IDMA the only FF filter is implemented by FFTs. Further, the parameters involved in the FDFE/
... Show MoreThree-dimensional (3D) image and medical image processing, which are considered big data analysis, have attracted significant attention during the last few years. To this end, efficient 3D object recognition techniques could be beneficial to such image and medical image processing. However, to date, most of the proposed methods for 3D object recognition experience major challenges in terms of high computational complexity. This is attributed to the fact that the computational complexity and execution time are increased when the dimensions of the object are increased, which is the case in 3D object recognition. Therefore, finding an efficient method for obtaining high recognition accuracy with low computational complexity is essentia
... Show MoreLaboratory studies were conducted at the biological control unit, college of Agriculture, University of Baghdad to evaluate some biological aspects of the predator Chilocorus bipustulatus (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), which is considered one of the most important predators on many insect pests, especially the scale insect, Parlatoria blanchardi, (Homoptera: Diaspididae) on date palms. The results showed that biological parameters of the predator were varied according to different degree of temperature. Egg incubation period was significantly different and reached to 7.5 and 5.44 day at 25 and 30°C respectively, Fertility was the same 100% at both temperature degrees. Larval growth periods were 17.41 and 16.12 day as well as the mortality du
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