Resilient polymeric materials such as silicone elastomers are currently used for maxillofacial prostheses construction but the strength of these materials and their clinical performance need to be optimized with the addition of reinforcing fillers. This study investigates the effect of zirconia nanopowder addition on tear strength, tensile strength, elongation at break, Shore A hardness, surface roughness and cytotoxicity of VST-50 maxillofacial silicone. Silicone base was mixed with different amounts (1%, 2% and 3%) of zirconia nanopowder using a vacuum mixer. Silicone without filler was used as control for comparison. Scanning Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy were utilized to assess the efficiency of high-shear vacuum mixing as filler dispersion method and the surface topography, respectively. Both SEM and AFM images showed that the zirconia nanopowder were distributed fairly well within the polymer. Statistically, highly significant increase in tear strength, tensile strength and hardness with non-significant decrease in elongation at break and non-significant increase in surface roughness were seen with 1% and 2% groups. Whereas with 3% group, there was significant improvement in tear strength, tensile strength and hardness but there was significant undesirable decrease in elongation and increase in roughness. Cytotoxicity test revealed that the addition of zirconia nanopowder was nontoxic to Rat Embryonic Fibroblast (REF) cells and there was non-significant change in the cell viability of all study groups after 24- and 72-hours incubation periods. In conclusion, the addition of 2% by weight nano zirconia to VST-50 maxillofacial silicone could be beneficial in enhancing its performance.
Objective: Evaluation the national standards for exposure to chemical materials and dusts in The State
Company for Drugs Industry in Samarra.
Methodology: A descriptive evaluation design is employed through the present study from 25th May 2011
to 30th November 2011 in order to evaluate the national standards for exposure chemical materials and dusts
in The State Company for Drugs Industry in Samarra. A purposive (non-probability) sample is selected for the
study which includes (110) workers from the State Company for Drugs Industry in Samarra. Data were
gathered through the workers` interviewed according to the nature of work that they perform. The evaluation
questionnaire comprised of three parts which include the w
Rate of penetration plays a vital role in field development process because the drilling operation is expensive and include the cost of equipment and materials used during the penetration of rock and efforts of the crew in order to complete the well without major problems. It’s important to finish the well as soon as possible to reduce the expenditures. So, knowing the rate of penetration in the area that is going to be drilled will help in speculation of the cost and that will lead to optimize drilling outgoings. In this research, an intelligent model was built using artificial intelligence to achieve this goal. The model was built using adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system to predict the rate of penetration in
... Show MoreNoor oil field is one of smallest fields in Missan province. Twelve well penetrates the Mishrif Formation in Noor field and eight of them were selected for this study. Mishrif formation is one of the most important reservoirs in Noor field and it consists of one anticline dome and bounded by the Khasib formation at the top and the Rumaila formation at the bottom. The reservoir was divided into eight units separated by isolated units according to partition taken by a rounding fields.
In this paper histograms frequency distribution of the porosity, permeability, and water saturation were plotted for MA unit of Mishrif formation in Noor field, and then transformed to the normal distribution by applying the Box-Cox transformation alg
... Show Morea-Ge: As thin films have prepared by thermal evaporation teclmique, then they were annealing at various temperatures within the
range (373-473) K. The result of X-ray di ffraction spectrum was showing that all the specimens remained in amorphous structure before and after annealing process. This paper studied the effect of annealing temperature as a function of wavelength on the optical energy gap and optical constants for the a-Ge:As thin films . Results have showed that there was an increasing in the optical energy gap
{Egopt) values with the in ,;rcasing of the annealing temperatures within
... Show MoreThe reuse or recycling of waste materials in different aspects of life is served the objective of sustainability and be beneficial to society. In recent years, a wide variety of waste materials were used in pavement construction. One of these materials is glass that generally produces in large quantities and crushed glass can be considered feasible alternative source of aggregate for asphalt mixture production. This study focused on examining the asphalt mixture properties of wearing course using crushed glass as fine aggregates. Fine crushed glass with various percentages by total weight retained on sieve 2.36 mm, 0.3 mm and 0.075 mm was used in the study. The results indicate that mixes containing crushed glass had lower Marshall stabilit
... Show MoreZinc oxide films (ZnO) are prepared by an electrolysis technique and without vacuum and then annealed atvarious temperatures (300,400,500)OC for an hour. The structural analysis performed by X-Ray diffraction (XRD) shows,dominant orientation of this films is plane (101), has a hexagonal structure and polycrystalline pattern and it was is found that the crystal size increases(24,29) nm at annealing temperatures (300, 400)° C, but the crystal size decreases to (20 nm) at annealing temperature (500 ° C). As the results of a surface nature study of these films showed by examining the atomic force microscope (AFM), the grain size increases from (60.79 to 88.11) nm, and the surface roughnes
... Show MoreIn this study, geopolymer mortar was designed in various experimental combinations employing 1% micro steel fibers and was subjected to different temperatures, according to the prior works of other researchers. The geopolymer mortar was developed using a variety of sustainable material proportions (fly ash and slag) to examine the influence of fibers on its strength. The fly ash weight percentage was 50%, 60%, and 70% by slag weight to study its effect on the geopolymer mortar's properties. The optimal ratio produced the most significant results when mixed at a 50:50 ratio of fly ash and slag with 1% micro steel fibers at curing temperature 240oC for 4 hours through two days. The compressive strength of the geopolymer mortar increas
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