Construction joints are stopping places in the process of placing concrete, and they are required because in many structures it is impractical to place concrete in one continuous operation. The amount of concrete that can be placed at one time is governed by the batching and mixing capacity and by the strength of the formwork. A good construction joint should provide adequate flexural and shear continuity through the interface.

In this study, the effect of location of construction joints on the performance of reinforced concrete structural elements is experimentally investigated.

Nineteen beam specimens with dimensions of 200×200×950 mm were tested. The variables investigated are the location of the construction joints

The central marshes are one of the most important wetlands/ecosystems in the southern area of Iraq. This study evaluates the bed soil's mechanical, physical, and chemical properties at certain southern Iraqi central marshes sites. This was conducted to investigate their types and suitability for enhancing the agricultural reality of most field crops and for construction purposes. Soil samples were collected from 15 sites at 10-100 cm depth. Hence, numerous parameters were determined: index properties, unconfined compressive strength, direct shear strength, consolidation, texture, and sieve analysis, water content, specific gravity, dry density, permeability, pH, total soluble salts (TSS), organic materials (OM) and total

Nanoparticles of Pb_1-xCd_xS within the composition of 0≤x≤1 were prepared from the reaction of aqueous solution of cadmium acetate, lead acetate, thiourea, and NaOH by chemical co-precipitation. The prepared samples were characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy(in the range 300-1100nm) to study the optical properties, AFM and SEM to check the surface morphology(Roughness average and shape) and the particle size. XRD technique was used to determine the crystalline structure, XRD technique was used to determine the purity of the phase and the crystalline structure, The crystalline size average of the nanoparticles have been found to be 20.7, 15.48, 11.9, 11.8, and 13.65 nm for PbS, Pb_0.75Cd_0.25S,

In this paper, ceramic water filters were produced by using ten mixtures of different ratios of red clay and sawdust under different production conditions. The physical properties of these filters were tested. The production conditions include five press pressures ranged from 10 to 50MPa and a firing schedule having three different final temperatures of 1000, 1070, and 1100˚C. The tests results of the physical properties were used to obtain best compatibility between the hydraulic and the mechanical properties of these filters. Results showed that as the press pressure and the firing temperature are increased, the bulk density and the compressive and bending strengths of the produced filters are increased, while, the porosity and absorp

Poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA)/poly(caprolactone) (PCL) and two types of organoclay (OMMT) including a fatty amide and ocatdecylamine montmorillonite (FA-MMT and ODA-MMT) were employed to produce polymer nanocomposites by melt blending. Materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Mechanical properties were also investigated for these nanocomposites. The nanocomposites showed increasing mechanical properties and thermal stability. XRD results indicated that the materials formed nanocomposites. SEM morphology showed that increasing content of OMMT reduc

Epoxy 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

   In this work, thin films of undoped and Al-doped CdO with (0.5, 1 and 2) wt.%  were prepared by using thermal vacuum evaporation on glass substrate at room  temperature. The optical absorption coefficient (α) of the films was determined from transmittance spectra in the range of wavelength (400-1100) nm. The spectral transmission and the optical energy band gap decrease from 75% and 2.24 eV to 20%  and 2.1 eV respectively depending upon the Al content in the films, also our studies include the calculation of  the optical constants (refractive index, extinction coefficient, real and imaginary part of dielectric constant) as a function of photon energy.  It is evaluated that the optical band gap of