Restoration of degraded lands by adoption of recommended conservation management practices can rehabilitate watersheds and lead to improving soil and water quality. The objective was to evaluate the effects of grass buffers (GBs), biomass crops (BCs), grass waterways (GWWs), agroforestry buffers (ABs), landscape positions, and distance from tree base for AB treatment on soil quality compared with row crop (RC) (corn [
The present paper addresses cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using airlift photobioreactor that sparged with 5% CO 2 /air. The experimental data were compared with that obtained from bioreactor aerated with air and unsparged bioreactor. The results showed that the concentration of biomass is 0.36 g l -1 in sparged bioreactor with CO2/air, while, the concentration of biomass reached to 0.069 g l -1 in the unsparged bioreactor. They showed also that aerated ioreactor.with CO2/air gives more biomass production even the bioreactor was aerated with air. This study proved that application of sparging system for ultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using either CO2/air mixture or air has a significant
... Show MoreIn this study, the flexural performance of a new composite beam–slab system filled with concrete material was investigated, where this system was mainly prepared from lightweight cold-formed steel sections of a beam and a deck slab for carrying heavy floor loads as another concept of a conventional composite system with a lower cost impact. For this purpose, seven samples of a profile steel sheet–dry board deck slab (PSSDB/PDS) carried by a steel cold-formed C-purlins beam (CB) were prepared and named “composite CBPDS specimen”, which were tested under a static bending load. Specifically, the effects of the profile steel sheet (PSS) direction (parallel or perpendicular to the span of the specimen) using different C-purlins c
... Show MoreEncasing glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) beam with reinforced concrete (RC) improves stability, prevents buckling of the web, and enhances the fire resistance efficiency. This paper provides experimental and numerical investigations on the flexural performance of RC specimens composite with encased pultruded GFRP I-sections. The effect of using shear studs to improve the composite interaction between the GFRP beam and concrete was explored. Three specimens were tested under three-point loading. The deformations, strains in the GFRP beams, and slippages between the GFRP beams and concrete were recorded. The embedded GFRP beam enhanced the peak loads by 65% and 51% for the composite specimens with and without shear connectors,
... Show MoreIn this paper, thermal performance of a zig-zig solar air heater (ZZSAH) with and without using steel wire mesh on the absorber plate of the collector is experimentally investigated. The experimental work includes four inclination angles of the collector 20o, 30o, 45o, and 60o and four air mass flow rates of 0.03, 0.04, 0.06, and 0.08 kg/s under varieties of operating conditions of a geographic location of Baghdad. New correlation equations of Nusselt number are obtained from experimental results for both types of collectors where the effect of varying of the inclination angle of collector taken into consideration in the experiment. The correlations show good agreement wi
... Show MoreIn this study, a new adsorbent derived from sunflower husk powder and coated in CuO nanoparticles (CSFH) was investigated to evaluate the simultaneous adsorption of Levofloxacin (LEV), Meropenem (MER), and Tetracycline (TEC) from an aqueous solution. Significant improvements in the adsorption capacity of the sunflower husk were identified after the powder particles had been coated in CuO nanoparticles. Kinetic data were correlated using a pseudo-second-order model, and was successful for the three antibiotics. Moreover, high compatibility was identified between the LEV, MER, and TEC, isotherm data, and the Langmuir model, which produced a better fit to suit the isotherm curves. In addition, the spontaneous and exothermic nature of the adsor
... Show MoreAccording to the importance of the conveyor systems in various industrial and service lines, it is very desirable to make these systems as efficient as possible in their work. In this paper, the speed of a conveyor belt (which is in our study a part of an integrated training robotic system) is controlled using one of the artificial intelligence methods, which is the Artificial Neural Network (ANN). A visions sensor will be responsible for gathering information about the status of the conveyor belt and parts over it, where, according to this information, an intelligent decision about the belt speed will be taken by the ANN controller. ANN will control the alteration in speed in a way that gives the optimized energy efficiency through
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