Hard-grade asphalt binders, such as AC 20–30, offer excellent resistance to permanent deformation but are inherently brittle, making them highly susceptible to fatigue and low-temperature cracking. While polymer modification addresses these issues, virgin polymers remain expensive. Despite the growing interest in recycled plastics, the rheological impact of complex waste streams, specifically polyvinyl chloride (PVC) derived from flex banners containing plasticizers, on excessively stiff binders within the complete Superpave Performance Grading (PG) framework remains critically underexplored. This study introduces a novel valorization approach by utilizing solvent-extracted flex banner waste (WPVC) as a dual-action modifier. It leverages

Dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) can be described as the presence of contact with the discharge of one or more insulating layers located between two cylindrical or flat electrodes connected to an AC/pulse dc power supply. In this work, the properties of the plasma generated by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) system without and with a glass insulator were studied. The plasma was generated at a constant voltage of 4 kV and fixed distance between the electrodes of 5 mm, and with a variable flow rate of argon gas (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5) L/min. The emission spectra of the DBD plasmas at different flow rates of argon gas have been recorded. Boltzmann plot method was used to calculate the plasma electron temperature (Te), and Stark broadeni

The problem of steady, laminar, natural convective flow in an square enclosure with and without partitions is considered for Rayleigh number (103-106) and Prandtl number (0.7). Vertical walls were maintained isothermal at different temperatures while horizontal walls and the partitions were insulated. The length of partition was taken constant. The number of partitions were placed on horizontal surface in staggered arrangement from (1– 3) and ratio of partition thickness (H/L= 0.033, 0.083, 0.124). The problem is formulated in terms of the vorticity-stream function procedure. A numerical solution based on a program in Fortran 90 with the finite difference method is obtained. Representative results illustrating the effects of the thickn

The paper aims at initiating and exploring the concept of extended metric known as the Strong Altering JS-metric, a stronger version of the Altering JS-metric. The interrelation of Strong Altering JS-metric with the b-metric and dislocated metric has been analyzed and some examples have been provided. Certain theorems on fixed points for expansive self-mappings in the setting of complete Strong Altering JS-metric space have also been discussed.

The performance of a condenser in a domestic refrigerator system without wires and a condenser with a novel design consisted of number of loops as elliptical shape is investigated experimentally in this work. The experiment was conducted with a refrigerator designed to work with HFC134a, under no load and with loads of (1.5,3 and 12 liters of water). In particular, the effects of shape change of the condenser were very important in heat transfer enhancement and reduce of the frictional loss as a result of reducing the pressure drop in the condenser. The results shown that compressor work decreases with elliptical condenser about (8.6% to 11.3%), and then the power consumption decreases also. The performance of household refrigerator with

Abstract: Facial defects resulting from neoplasms, congenital, acquired malformations or trauma can be restored with facial prosthesis using different materials and retention methods to achieve life-like look and function. A nasal prosthesis can re-establish aesthetic form and anatomic contours for mid-facial defects, often more effectively than by surgical reconstruction as the nose is relatively immobile structure. For successful results, lot of factors such as harmony, texture, color matching and blending of tissue interface with the prosthesis are important. The aim of this study is to describe the non-surgical rehabilitation with nasal prosthesis for an Iraqi patient who received rhinectomy as a result of squamous cell carcinoma of the

The piled raft is a geotechnical composite construction consisting of three elements: piles, raft and soil.
In the design of piled rafts, the load shared between the piles and the raft, and the piles are used up to a
load level that can be of the same order of magnitude as the bearing capacity of a comparable single
pile or even greater. Therefore, the piled raft foundation allows reduction of settlements in a very
economic way as compared to traditional foundation concepts.
This paper presents experimental study to investigate the behavior of piled raft system in sandy
soil. A small scale “prototype” model was tested in a sand box with load applied to the system through
a compression machine. The settlement was