Incorporating waste byproducts into concrete is an innovative and promising way to minimize the environmental impact of waste material while maintaining and/or improving concrete’s mechanical characteristics and strength. The proper application of sawdust as a pozzolan in the building industry remains a significant challenge. Consequently, this study conducted an experimental evaluation of sawdust as a fill material. In particular, sawdust as a fine aggregate in concrete offers a realistic structural and economical possibility for the construction of lightweight structural systems. Failure under four-point loads was investigated for six concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) specimens. The results indicated that recycled lightweight concrete performed similarly to conventional concrete when used as a filler material in composite steel tube beams. The structural effects of sawdust substitution on ultimate load and initial stiffness were less substantial than the relative changes in the material properties, and the ultimate capacity of the tested samples decreased moderately as the substitution percentage of sawdust increased. Moreover, the maximum load capacity was observed to decrease by 6.43–30.71% for sawdust replacement levels between 5% and 45.1% across all tested samples. Additionally, when using lightweight concrete with 5% sawdust, the moment value of the CFST sample was reduced by 6.4%. Notably, the sawdust CFST samples exhibited a flexural behavior that was relatively comparable to that of the standard CFST samples.
Solar distillers are a sustainable and simple solution for addressing water scarcity, but their limited productivity restricts their effectiveness. This work aimed to assess the thermal performance of a novel tracked, tilted, hexagonal tubular solar still (HTSS) of four-sectioned U-channel receiver. Two identical HTSSs were side-to-side tested in Baghdad-Iraq (33.3°N, 43.3°E) from June to September 2024. The thermal evaluation of single-axis tracking solar still, tilted at (5° to 15°) with the horizontal axis and charged with and without hydrogel beads for water depth of 60 mm. The still's thermal performance is assessed by analyzing heat transfer coefficients, energy and exergy efficiencies, as well as conducting cost and environment
... Show MoreThis paper describes a microcontroller-based function generator system. By the function generator sine wave, square wave, quasi-square wave, saw-tooth and triangular waveforms are generated over a wide frequency range according to user requirements. By utilizing processing capabilities of the microcontroller the hardware is minimized exceedingly. The output waveform shapes are digitally-controlled to achieve the required wave shape. The single chip microcomputer of waveform generation equipment offers the possibility of improvements in manufacture reliability, maintenance and servicing and increased control flexibility. The system is built and tested. The results of test were satisfactory and appreciated by test engineers at different ce
... Show MoreThis work includes design, implementation and testing of a microcontroller – based spectrum analyzer system. Both hardware and software structures are built to verify the main functions that are required by such system. Their design utilizes the permissible and available tools to achieve the main functions of the system in such a way to be modularly permitting any adaptation for a specific changing in the application environment. The analysis technique, mainly, depends on the Fourier analysis based methods of spectral analysis with the necessary required preconditioning processes. The software required for waveform analysis has been prepared. The spectrum of the waveform has been displayed, and the instrument accuracy has been checked.
... Show MoreBuckling analysis of a laminated composite thin plate with different boundary conditions subjected to in-plane uniform load are studied depending on classical laminated plate theory; analytically using (Rayleigh-Ritz method). Equation of motion of the plates was derived using the principle of virtual work and solved using modified Fourier displacement function that satisfies general edge conditions. The eigenvalue problem generated by using Ritz method, the set of linear algebraic equations can be solved using MATLAB for symmetric and anti-symmetric, cross and angle-ply laminated plate considering some design parameters such as aspect ratios, number of layers, lamination type and orthotropic ratio. The results obtained g
... Show MoreExperimental investigations had been done in this research to demonstrate the effect of carbon fiber and Ceramic fillers contents on the tribological behaviour of (15% volume fraction) carbon-epoxy composite system under varying volume fraction, load, time and sliding distance. The wear resistance were investigated according to ASTM G99-05standard using pin on disc machine to present the composite tribological behaviour. The influence of three ceramic fillers, granite, perlite and calcium carbonate (CaCO3), on the wear of the carbon fabric reinforced epoxy composites under dry sliding conditions has been investigated. The effect of variants in volume fraction, applied load, time and sliding distance on the wear behaviour of po
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to understand the effect of addition carbon types on aluminum electrical conductivity which used three fillers of carbon reinforced aluminum at different weight fractions. The experimental results showed that electrical conductivity of aluminum was decreased by the addition all carbon types, also at low weight fraction of carbon black; it reached (4.53S/cm), whereas it was appeared highly increasing for each carbon fiber and synthetic graphite. At (45%) weight fraction the electrical conductivity was decreased to (4.36Scm) and (4.27Scm) for each carbon fiber and synthetic graphite, respectively. While it was reached to maximum value with carbon black. Hybrid composites were investigated also; the results exhibit tha
... Show MoreThe wear behavior of alumina particulate reinforced A332 aluminium alloy composites produced by a stir casting process technique were investigated. A pin-on-disc type apparatus was employed for determining the sliding wear rate in composite samples at different grain size (1 µm, 12µm, 50 nm) and different weight percentage (0.05-0.1-0.5-1) wt% of alumina respectively. Mechanical properties characterization which strongly depends on microstructure properties of reinforcement revealed that the presence of ( nano , micro) alumina particulates lead to simultaneous increase in hardness, ultimate tensile stress (UTS), wear resistances. The results revealed that UTS, Hardness, Wear resistances increases with the increase in the percentage of
... Show More