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

Eco-friendly materials are increasingly used in civil engineering to support sustainable development. Conventional concrete relies heavily on Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), the production of which contributes significantly to the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS) and fly ash can partially replace OPC, thereby reducing the environmental impact. This study investigates the effect of basalt fiber incorporation on the mechanical properties of geopolymer lightweight concrete. The concrete mixtures consisted of fly ash, slag, pumice aggregate, sand, and an alkaline activator prepared by combining sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate. The mix design included an activator-to-binder ratio of 0.45

The present study illustrates observations, record accurate description and discussion about the behavior of twelve tested, simply supported, precast, prestressed, segmental, concrete beams with different segment numbers exposed to high fire temperatures of 300°C, 500°C, and 700°C. The test program included thermal tests by using a furnace manufactured for this purpose to expose to high burning temperature (fire flame) nine beams which were loaded with sustaining dead load throughout the burning process. The beams were divided into three groups depending on the precast segments number. All had an identical total length of 3150mm but each had different segment number (9, 7, and 5 segments), in other words, different segment length

Interest has largely centered on the use of plant fibers to reinforce plastics, because these fibers are abundant and cheap. Carrot fibers (Curran) have been extracted from carrot, left over from carrot juice manufacture. The fibers of two sizes fine (50<µm) and coarse (100-150 µm) have been mixed with epoxy in four levels of loading (10, 20, 30, 40 wt %) respectively. Impact test, shore d hardness test and three point bending test of epoxy and carrot fiber-epoxy composites samples have been determined. The impact strength values of samples prepared with fine and coarse fibers increased as compared with pure epoxy sample. Hardness values increased, and the Young’s modulus values decreased with fiber content of both sizes.

An experimental program was conducted to determine the residual of composite Steel Beams-Reinforced Concrete (SB-RC) deck floors fabricated from a rolled steel beam topped with a reinforced concrete slab, exposed to high temperatures (fire flame) of 300, 500, and 700ºC for 1 hour, and then allowed to cool down by leaving them in the lab condition to return to the ambient temperature. The burning results showed that, by exposing them to a fire flame of up to 300ºC, no serious permanent deflection occurred. It was also noticed that the specimen recovered 93% of 19.2 mm of the deflection caused by burning. The recovered deflection of burned composite SB-RC deck floor at 500ºC was 40% of 77.9 mm of the deflection caused by burning with a res

A novel demountable shear connector is proposed to link a concrete slab to steel sections in a way that resulting steel-concrete composite floor is demountable, i.e. it can be easily dismantled at the end of its service life. The proposed connectors consist of two parts: the first part is a hollow steel tube with internal threads at its lower end. The second part is a compatible partially threaded bolted stud. After linking the stud to the steel section, the hollow steel tube can be fastened over the threaded stud, which create a complete demountable shear connector. The connector is suitable for use in both composite bridges and buildings, and using cast in-situ slabs, precast solid slabs, or hollow-core precast slabs. A series of push-off

A tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding is one of the most popular kinds of welding used to join metals mainly for aluminum alloys.  However, many challenges may be met with this kind of joining process; these challenges arise from decay of mechanical properties of welded materials. In the present study, an attempt was made to enhancing the mechanical properties of TIG weld joint of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy by hardening the surfaces using shoot peening technique. To optimize the shoot peening process three times of exposure (5, 10, and 15) min. was used. All peened and unpeened, and welded and unwelded samples were  characterized by metallographic test to indicate the phase transformation and modification in microstructure occurring d