Tillage tools are subject to friction and low-stress abrasive wear processes with the potential deterioration of the desired soil quality, loss of mechanical weed efficacy, and downtime for replacing worn tools. Limited experimental methods exist to quantify investigate the effect of wear-resistant coatings on shape parameters of soil-engaging tools. ASTM standard sand/rubber wheel abrasion and pin-on-disk tests are not able to simulate wear characteristics of the complex shape of the tillage tools. Even though the tribology of tillage tools can be realistic from field tests, tillage wear tests under field conditions are expensive and often challenging to generate repeatable engineering data due to variable soil conditions in the field. A technique that simulated tillage wear of cultivator sweep in a circular soil bin filled with abrasive gravel medium and moisture condition was developed and applied to quantify the wear characteristics of cultivator sweeps with and without hardfaced edges. The hardfaced cultivator sweep had a cemented carbide chip applied to the bottom cutting edge and front tip sections of a standard cultivator sweep according to a proprietary CADEN Edge welding process. The CADEN Edge hardfaced sweeps showed improved wear performance 1.7 times and 3.5 times on mass and shape (sweep length and sweep wing cutting width) dimensions, respectively, compared with the un-hardened standard sweep. The results implied hardfaced cultivator sweep with cemented carbide chips provide potential in maintaining tillage productivity and the desired soil quality for seed-bed preparation.
A freshwater bivalve plays a crucial function in aquatic habitats as the filtered water and burrowing mussels mix the sediment, thus increasing oxygen content and making the ecosystem healthier. The aim of the study is to see how chlorpyrifos affects biochemical markers in freshwater mussel Unio tigridis. About 180 individuals per taxon and water samples were collected from the Qandil water resource on the Greater Zab River, Erbil Province, Iraq. Once arrived at the lab, the individuals were kept in aquaria with river water and an air-conditioned room Temperature: 25±2 and Light: 12h/12h and acclimatized to laboratory conditions for seven days in aged tap water. The mussel's identification molecularly and the DNA sequence of t
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This work represents the set of measurements of radon and thoron concentrations levels of soil-gas in Al-Kufa city in Iraq using electric Radon meter (RAD-7). Radon and thoron concentration were measured in soil-gas in 20 location for three depth of (50, 100 and 150) cm.
The results show that the emanation rate of radon and thoron gas varied from location to anther, depending on the geological formation. The Radon concentration in soil has been found to vary from (12775±400) Bq/m3 at 150 cm depth in location (sample K2) to (41.45±17) Bq/m3, for depth 150 cm in location (sample K20). The thoron concentration in soil has been found to vary from (198±8.5) Bq/m3 at 150 cm depth in location samples (K1 & K2) to undetected in the mos
Background: Manuka honey (MH) is a mono-floral honey derived from the Manuka tree (Leptospermum scoparium). MH is a highly recognized for its non-peroxide antibacterial activities, which are mostly related to its unique methylglyoxal content (MGO) in MH. The beneficial phytochemicals in MH is directly related to their favorable health effects, which include wound healing, anticancer, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties. Aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of MH on pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-8 and TNF-α) in patients with gingivitis and compare it with chlorhexidine (CHX) and distilled water (DW). Materials and Methods: This study was a randomized, double blinded, and parallel clinical trial. Forty-fiv
... Show MoreAb – initio density function theory (DFT) calculations coupled with Large Unit Cell (LUC) method were carried out to evaluate the electronic structure properties of III-V zinc blend (GaAs). The nano – scale that have dimension (1.56-2.04)nm. The Gaussian 03 computational packages has been employed through out this study to compute the electronic properties include lattice constant, energy gap, valence and conduction band width, total energy, cohesive energy and density of state etc. Results show that the total energy and energy gap are decreasing with increase the size of nano crystal . Results revealed that electronic properties converge to some limit as the size of LUC increase .