This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From

The main aim of this research paper is investigating the effectiveness and validity of Meso-Scale Approach (MSA) as a modern technique for the modeling of plain concrete beams. Simply supported plain concrete beam was subjected to two-point loading to detect the response in flexural. Experimentally, a concrete mix was designed and prepared to produce three similar standard concrete prisms for flexural testing. The coarse aggregate used in this mix was crushed aggregate. Numerical Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was conducted on the same concrete beam using the meso-scale modeling. The numerical model was constructed to be a bi-phasic material consisting of cement mortar and coarse aggregate. The interface between the two c

There have been many advances in the solar chimney power plant  since 1930 and the first pilot work was built in Spain (Manzanares) that produced 50 KW. The solar chimney power plant is considered of a clean power generation that needs to be investigated  to enhance the performance by studying the effect of changing the area of passage of air to enhance the velocity towards the chimney to maximize design velocity. In this experimental and numerical study, the reduction area of solar collector was investigated. The reduction area that mean changing the height of glass cover from the absorbing plate (h1=3.8cm, h2=2.6cm and h3=1.28cm). The numerical study was performed using ANSYS Fluent software package (version 14.0) to solve go

<p>Daftardar Gejji and Hossein Jafari have proposed a new iterative method for solving many of the linear and nonlinear equations namely (DJM). This method proved already the effectiveness in solved many of the ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations and integral equations. The main aim from this paper is to propose the Daftardar-Jafari method (DJM) to solve the Duffing equations and to find the exact solution and numerical solutions. The proposed (DJM) is very effective and reliable, and the solution is obtained in the series form with easily computed components. The software used for the calculations in this study was MATHEMATICA^® 9.0.</p>

A novel concept of air heater using a heating element made from Aluminum metal porous disc surrounded by a DC resistive electrical heater inserted in the mid-plane of a copper tube of (52.8 mm) diameter and (480 mm) length is presented herein. Study of the developed heater is conducted; using different porous disc thicknesses of (20, 40, 60 mm), heater wall temperatures (106 °C and 119 °C), and flow rates rare varied from (100–300 L/min). Al-metal foam disc has been made using the metal powder technology. Different resistive electrical heaters according to the type of porous disc used have been manufactured. A 2-D computational model is developed, using continuity, momentum, and energy equations for turbulent forced flow in plain tube,

The researches to discover useful ways to represent the agents and agent-based
systems are continuous. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a visual modeling language
used for software and non software modeling systems. The aim of this paper is: using UML
class diagram to design treasury pharmaceuticals agent and explain its internal action. The
diagram explains the movement of the agent among other nodes to achieve user's requests
(external) after it takes them. The paper shows that it is easy to model the practical systems by
using agent UML when they are used in a complex environment.

Directional control valves are designed to control direction of flow, while actuators maintain required speeds and precise positions. Magnetorheological (MR) fluid is a controllable fluid. Utilizing the MR fluid properties, direct interface between magnetic fields and fluid power is possible, without the need for mechanical moving parts like spools. This study proposes a design of a four-way three-position MR directional control valve, presents a method of building, and explains the working principle of the valve. An analysis of the design and finite elements using finite element method of magnetism (FEMM) software was performed on each valve. The magnetic circuit of the MR valve was analyzed and the performance was simulated. The

In this research Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique was applied to study the filtration process in water treatment. Eight models have been developed and tested using data from a pilot filtration plant, working under different process design criteria; influent turbidity, bed depth, grain size, filtration rate and running time (length of the filtration run), recording effluent turbidity and head losses. The ANN models were constructed for the prediction of different performance criteria in the filtration process: effluent turbidity, head losses and running time. The results indicate that it is quite possible to use artificial neural networks in predicting effluent turbidity, head losses and running time in the filtration process, wi