A novel demountable shear connector for precast steel-concrete composite bridges is presented. The connector uses high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the top flange of the steel beam with the aid of a special locking nut configuration that prevents bolts from slipping within their holes. Moreover, the connector promotes accelerated construction and overcomes the typical construction tolerance issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connector allows bridge disassembly. Therefore, it can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow including the following: (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (

This paper investigated the fatigue life behavior of two composite materials subjected to different times of shot peening (2, 4 and 6 min).The first material prepared from unsaturated polyester with E-glass reinforcement by 33% volume fraction. While, the second one was prepared from unsaturated polyester with aluminum powder by2.5% volume fraction. The experimental results showed that the improvement in endurance limit was obtained (for the first material) at 2, 4 and 6 min shot peening times where the percentage of maximum improvement was 25% at shot peening time of 6 min. While, the endurance limit of the second material decreased at shot peening times of 2, 4 and 6 min where the percentage of maximum reduction was 29 % at shot peenin

This study describe the effect of temperature on the optical
properties of nickel(ii) phthalocyanine tetrasulfonic acid tetrasodium
salt (NiPcTs) organic thin films which are prepared by spin coating
on indium tin oxide (ITO-glass). The optical absorption spectra of
these thin films are measured. Present studies reveal that the optical
band gap energies of NiPcTs thin films are dependent on the
annealing temperatures. The optical band gap decreases with increase
in annealing temperature, then increased when the temperature rising
to 473K. To enhance the results of Uv-Vis measurements and get
more accurate values of optical energy gaps; the Photoluminescence
spectra of as-deposited and annealed NiPcTs thin fi

In this study, a 3 mm thickness 7075-T6 aluminium alloy sheet was used in the friction stir welding process. Using the design of experiment to reduce the number of experiments and to obtain the optimum friction stir welding parameters by utilizing Taguchi technique based on the ultimate tensile test results. Orthogonal array of L9 (3³) was used based on three numbers of the parameters and three levels for each parameter, where shoulder-workpiece interference depth (0.20, 0.25, and 0.3) mm, pin geometry (cylindrical thread flat end, cylindrical thread with 3 flat round end, cylindrical thread round end), and thread pitch (0.8, 1, and 1.2) mm) this technique executed by Minitab 17 software. The results showed th

Exposure assays to magnetized water have so far revealed striking results. The present study was conducted to determine the effects of magnetized water treatment with in different intensities 500 , 1000 and 1500 Gauss on some biological aspects for species of freshwater Gastropod Lymnaea lagotis (Schrank, 1803) which important species in faun of aquatic habitats of Iraq. This species are considered a component of the food chain. The obtained results compared with these species which lived in the river(control). Result of these experiments showed increased significance the shell size (shell high, shell aperture length, shell aperture width and shell width) for L. lagotis with increased intensity magnetized water such as treated water with 1

 A particle swarm optimization algorithm and neural network like self-tuning PID controller for CSTR system is presented. The scheme of the discrete-time PID control structure is based on neural network and tuned the parameters of the PID controller by using a particle swarm optimization PSO technique as a simple and fast training algorithm. The proposed method has advantage that it is not necessary to use a combined structure of identification and decision because it used PSO. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive PID neural control algorithm in terms of minimum tracking error and smoothness control signal obtained for non-linear dynamical CSTR system.

Numerical study has been conducted to investigate the thermal performance enhancement of flat plate solar water collector by integrating the solar collector with metal foam blocks.The flow is assumed to be steady, incompressible and two dimensional in an inclined channel. The channel is provided with eight foam blocks manufactured form copper. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is utilized to simulate the flow in the porous medium and the Navier-Stokes equation in the fluid region. The energy equation is used with local thermal equilibrium (LTE) assumption to simulate the thermofield inside the porous medium. The current investigation covers a range of solar radiation intensity at 09:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 04:00

The present work determines the particle size based only on the number of tracks detected in a cluster created by a hot particle on the CR-39 solid state nuclear track detector and depending on the exposure time. The mathematical model of the cross section developed here gives the relationship between alpha particle emitting from the (n, α) reaction and the number of tracks created and distribution of tracks created on the surface of the track detector. In an experiment performed during this work, disc of boron compound (boric acid or sodium tetraborate) of different weights were prepared and exposed to thermal neutron from the source. Chemical etching is processes of path formation in the detector, during which a suitable etching solut

Introduction and Aim: Cancers are a complex group of genetic illnesses that develop through multistep, mutagenic processes which can invade or spread throughout the body. Recent advances in cancer treatment involve oncolytic viruses to infect and destroy cancer cells. The Newcastle disease virus (NDV), an oncolytic virus has shown to have anti-cancer effects either directly by lysing cancer cells or indirectly by activating the immune system. The green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been widely used in studying the anti-tumor activity of oncolytic viruses. This study aimed to study the anticancer effect of a recombinant rNDV-GFP clone on NCI-H727 lung carcinoma cell line in vitro.   Materials and Methods: The GFP gene was inserted t