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.
The clayey soils have the capability to swell and shrink with the variation in moisture content. Soil stabilization is a well-known technique, which is implemented to improve the geotechnical properties of soils. The massive quantities of waste materials are resulting from modern industry methods create disposal hazards in addition to environmental problems. The steel industry has a waste that can be used with low strength and weak engineering properties soils. This study is carried out to evaluate the effect of steel slag (SS) as a by-product of the geotechnical properties of clayey soil. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on natural and stabilized soils. SS was added by 0, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20% to the soil.
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study was to determine the effect of lupine flour (L.f) and lupine protein concentrate (L.P.C) incorporation on chemical, nutritional and sensual qualities characteristics of biscuit (L.P.C) was prepared by isoelectric precipitation method. A standard recipe for biscuit preparation by wheat patent flour used as the control. Wheat flour in the control treatment was replaced with (L.f) and (L.P.C) at levels 10, 20 & 30%. Chemical composition of (L.f), (L.P.C) and biscuit treatments were studied. Results showed that protein contents were 35.35 & 75.80% for (L.F) and (L.P.C), respectively. While they amounted to 14.70, 16.16 & 18.61% for (L.f) incorporated biscuits and
... Show Moreteen sites Baghdad are made. The sites are divided into two groups, one in Karkh and the other in Rusafa. Assessing the underground conditions can be occurred by drilling vertical holes called exploratory boring into the ground, obtaining soil (disturbed and undisturbed) samples, and testing these samples in a laboratory (civil engineering laboratory /University of Baghdad). From disturbed, the tests involved the grain size analysis and then classified the soil, Atterberg limit, chemical test (organic content, sulphate content, gypsum content and chloride content). From undisturbed samples, the test involved the consolidation test (from this test, the following parameters can be obtained: initial void ratio eo, compression index cc, swel
... Show MoreRecently times, industrial development has increased, including plastic industries, and since plastic has a very long analytical life, it will cause environmental pollution. Therefore studies have resorted to reusing recycled plastic waste (sustainable plastic) to produce environmentally friendly concrete (green concrete). In this research, some studies were reviewed and then summarized into several things, including the percentage of plastic replacement from the aggregate and the effect of this percentage on the fresh properties of concrete, such as the workability and the effect of plastic waste on the hardening properties of concrete such as dry density, compressive, tensile and flexural strength.
Hollow core photonic bandgap fibers provide a new geometry for the realization and enhancement of many nonlinear optical effects. Such fibers offer novel guidance and dispersion properties that provide an advantage over conventional fibers for various applications. Dispersion, which expresses the variation with wavelength of the guided-mode group velocity, is one of the most important properties of optical fibers. Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) offer much larger flexibility than conventional fibers with respect to tailoring of the dispersion curve. This is partly due to the large refractive-index contrast available in the silica/air microstructures, and partly due to the possibility of making complex refractive-index structure over the fibe
... Show MoreThis paper develop conventional Runge-Kutta methods of order four and order five to solve ordinary differential equations with oscillating solutions. The new modified Runge-Kutta methods (MRK) contain the invalidation of phase lag, phase lag’s derivatives, and ampliï¬cation error. Numerical tests from their outcomes show the robustness and competence of the new methods compared to the well-known Runge-Kutta methods in the scientiï¬c literature.
Setting-up a 3D geological model both from field and subsurface data is a typical task in geological studies involving natural resource evaluation and hazard assessment. In this study a 3D geological model for Mishrif Formation in Garraf oil field has been set-up using Petrel software. Mishrif Formation represents the most important reservoir in Garraf oil field. Four vertical oil wells (GA-4, GA-A1P, GA-3 and GA-5) and one directional well (GA-B8P) were selected in Garraf Oil Field in order to set-up structural and petrophysical (porosity and water saturation) models represented by a 3D static geological model in three dimensions. Structural model shows that Garraf oil field represents a domal structure that shows continuous growth as i
... Show MoreBuilding a geological model is an essential and primary step for studying the reservoir’s hydrocarbon content and future performance. A three-dimensional geological model of the Asmari reservoir in Abu- Ghirab oil field including structure, stratigraphy, and reservoir petrophysical properties, has been constructed in the present work.
As to underlying Formations, striking slip faults developed at the flank and interlayer normal. Abu Ghirab oilfields are located on the eastern anticlinal band, which has steadily plunged southward. 3D seismic interpretation results are utilized to build the fault model for 43 faults of the Asmari Formation in Abu Ghirab Oilfield. A geographic facies model with six different rock facies type
... Show MoreImage retrieval is used in searching for images from images database. In this paper, content – based image retrieval (CBIR) using four feature extraction techniques has been achieved. The four techniques are colored histogram features technique, properties features technique, gray level co- occurrence matrix (GLCM) statistical features technique and hybrid technique. The features are extracted from the data base images and query (test) images in order to find the similarity measure. The similarity-based matching is very important in CBIR, so, three types of similarity measure are used, normalized Mahalanobis distance, Euclidean distance and Manhattan distance. A comparison between them has been implemented. From the results, it is conclud
... Show MoreIn this work, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) nanocomposite was prepared and hybridized with Graphene (Gr) by the solution casting method. The morphological and electrical properties were investigated by field effect scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) images, portraying a uniform dispersion of graphene within the PVP-MWCNT nanocomposite. The AC conductivity increased from (1.45552) to (2.34812) (Ω cm)-1 with the use of nanocomposite. The increasing continues for the AC conductivity after hybridized with graphene up to (7.20641) (Ω cm)-1. In addition, the performances of the prepared samples for gas sensor application have been investigated.
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