Shallow foundations have been commonly used to transfer load to soil layer within the permissible limits of settlement based on the bearing capacity of the soil. For most practical cases, the shape of the shallow foundation is of slight significance. Also, friction resistance forces in the first layers of soils are negligible due to non-sufficient surrounding surface area and compaction conditions. However, the bearing capacity of a shallow foundation can be increased by several techniques. Geocell is one of the geosynthetic tool applied mainly to reinforce soil. This study presents a numerical approach of honeycombed geocell steel panels reinforcing the sandy soil under shallow foundation, and several parameters are investigated such as the size and depth of honeycombed steel panels. The numerical results showed that honeycombed geocell reinforcement can increase the bearing capacity of soil by 65% and decrease the displacement of shallow foundation by 45%. This improvement of soil behavior under load resulted from the confinement of soil under foundation and increases the friction between soil and walls of geocells.
Test results of six half-scale reinforced concrete flat plates connections with an opening in the vicinity of the column are reported. The test specimens represent a portion of a slab bounded by the lines of contraflexure around the column. The tests were designed to study the effect of openings on the punching shear behavior of the slab-column connections. The test parameters were the location and the size of the openings. One specimen had no opening and the remaining five had various arrangements of openings around the column. All specimens were cast with normal density concrete of approximately 30 MPa compressive strength. The openings in the specimens were square, with the sides parallel to the sides of the column. Three sizes of ope
... Show MoreEpoxy resin has many chemical features and mechanical properties, but it has a small elongation at break, low impact strength and crack propagation resistance, i.e. it exhibits a brittle behavior. In the current study, the influence of adding kaolin with variable particle size on the mechanical properties (flexural modulus E, toughness Gc, fracture toughness Kc, hardness HB, and Wear rate WR) of epoxy resin was evaluated. Composites of epoxy with varying concentrations (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 weights %) of kaolin were prepared by hand-out method. The composites showed improved (E, Gc, Kc, HB, and WR) properties with the addition of filler. Also, similar results were observed with the decrease in particle size. In addition, in this study, mult
... Show MoreThe best design of subsurface trickle irrigation systems requires knowledge of water and salt distribution patterns around the emitters that match the root extraction and minimize water losses. The transient distribution of water and salt in a two-dimensional homogeneous Iraqi soil domain under subsurface trickle irrigation with different settings of an emitter is investigated numerically using 2D-HYDRUS software. Three types of Iraqi soil were selected. The effect of altering different values of water application rate and initial soil water content was investigated in the developed model. The coefficient of correlation (R2) and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) was used to validate the predicted numerical res
... Show MoreGurney flap (GF) is well-known as one of the most attractive plain flaps because of the simple configuration and effectiveness in improving the lift of the airfoil. Many studies were conducted, but the effects of GF on the various airfoil types need to be further investigated. This study aimed to clarify the effect of GF in the case of the supercritical airfoil RAE2822. This research includes a steady, two-dimensional computational investigation carried out on the supercritical airfoil type RAE-2822 to analyze Gurney flap (GF) effects on the aerodynamic characteristics of this type of airfoil utilizing the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model within the commercial software Fluent. The airfoil with the Gurney flap was analyz
... Show MoreThis paper demonstrates an experimental and numerical study aimed to compare the influence of openings of different configurations on the flexural behavior of prestressed concrete rafters. The experimental program consisted of testing six simply supported prestressed concrete rafters; 5 rafters are perforated, and the other one is solid as a reference. All rafters were tested under monotonic midpoint load. The variable which has been investigated in this work was the opening’s configuration (quadrilateral or circular) with the same upper and lower chords depths. The results indicate improvement in the beam flexural behavior using the circular openings compared to the quadrilateral o
The determination of aerodynamic coefficients by shell designers is a critical step in the development of any projectile design. Of particular interest is the determination of the aerodynamic coefficients at transonic speeds. It is in this speed regime that the critical aerodynamic behavior occurs and a rapid change in the aerodynamic coefficients is observed. Two-dimensional, transonic, flow field computations over projectiles have been made using Euler equations which were used for solution with no special treatment required. In this work a solution algorithm is based on finite difference MacCormack’s technique for solving mixed subsonic-supersonic flow problem. Details of the asymmetrically located shock waves on the projectiles hav
... Show MoreHydro cracking of heavy oil is used in refinery to produce invaluable products. In this research, a model of hydro cracking reactor has been used to study the behavior of heavy oil in hydro cracking under the conditions recommended by literature in terms lumping of feed and products. The lumping scheme is based on five lumps include: heavy oil, vacuum oil, distillates, naphtha and gases. The first order kinetics was assumed for the conversion in the model and the system is modeled as an isothermal tubular reactor. MATLAB 6.1 was used to solve the model for a five lump scheme for different values of feed velocity, and temperature.
The aim of this research work is to study the effect of stabilizing gypseous soil, which covers
vast areas in the middle, west and south parts of Iraq, using liquid asphalt on its strength properties
to be used as a base course layer replacing the traditional materials of coarse aggregate and broken
stones which are scarce at economical prices and hauling distances.
Gypseous soil brought from Al-Ramadi City, west of Iraq, with gypsum content of 66.65%,
medium curing cutback asphalt (MC-30), and hydrated lime are used in this study.
The conducted tests on untreated and treated gypseous soil with different percentages of medium
curing cutback asphalt (MC-30), water, and lime were: unconfined compression strength, and o
Soil compaction is one of the most harmful elements affecting soil structure, limiting plant growth and agricultural productivity. It is crucial to assess the degree of soil penetration resistance to discover solutions to the harmful consequences of compaction. In order to obtain the appropriate value, using soil cone penetration requires time and labor-intensive measurements. Currently, satellite technologies, electronic measurement control systems, and computer software help to measure soil penetration resistance quickly and easily within the precision agriculture applications approach. The quantitative relationships between soil properties and the factors affecting their diversity contribute to digital soil mapping. Digital soil maps use
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