The optimal design of any structural elements requires examining all environmental risks, emergency accidents, and standard load cases. Exposure to fire is one of the most common safety threats. Nowadays wide developments are achieved in the field of concrete technology, therefore, experimental and theoretical investigations should be performed on the characteristics of such developed materials under different loading conditions. This study investigates the impact of fire exposure on the mechanical characteristics of self-compacting concrete, specifically compressive and tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, and stress-strain relation. The adopted fire exposure consisted of six steady-state temperatures (300, 400, 500, 600, 700,

Fractal image compression gives some desirable properties like fast decoding image, and very good rate-distortion curves, but suffers from a high encoding time. In fractal image compression a partitioning of the image into ranges is required. In this work, we introduced good partitioning process by means of merge approach, since some ranges are connected to the others. This paper presents a method to reduce the encoding time of this technique by reducing the number of range blocks based on the computing the statistical measures between them . Experimental results on standard images show that the proposed method yields minimize (decrease) the encoding time and remain the quality results passable visually.

This work presents the construction of a test apparatus for air-conditioning application that is flexible in changing a scaled down adsorbent bed modules. To improve the heat and mass transfer performance of the adsorbent bed, a finned-tube of the adsorbent bed heat exchanger was used. The results show that the specific cooling power (SCP) and the coefficient of performance (COP) are 163 W/kg and 0.16, respectively, when the cycle time is 40 min, the hot water temperature is 90^oC, the cooling water temperature is 30^oC and the evaporative water temperature is 11.4^oC.

Utilizing phase change materials in thermal energy storage systems is commonly considered as an alternative solution for the effective use of energy. This study presents numerical simulations of the charging process for a multitube latent heat thermal energy storage system. A thermal energy storage model, consisting of five tubes of heat transfer fluids, was investigated using Rubitherm phase change material (RT35) as the. The locations of the tubes were optimized by applying the Taguchi method. The thermal behavior of the unit was evaluated by considering the liquid fraction graphs, streamlines, and isotherm contours. The numerical model was first verified compared with existed experimental data from the literature. The outcomes re

A Laced Reinforced Concrete (LRC) structural element comprises continuously inclined shear reinforcement in the form of lacing that connects the longitudinal reinforcements on both faces of the structural element. This study conducted a theoretical investigation of LRC deep beams to predict their behavior after exposure to fire and high temperatures. Four simply supported reinforced concrete beams of 1500 mm, 200 mm, and 240 mm length, width, and depth, respectively, were considered. The specimens were identical in terms of compressive strength (  40 MPa) and steel reinforcement details. The same laced steel reinforcement ratio of 0.0035 was used. Three specimens were burned at variable durations and steady-state temperatures (one

Although renewable energy systems have become an interesting global issue, it is not continuous either daily or seasonally. Latent heat energy storage (LHES) is one of the suitable solutions for this problem. LHES becomes a basic element in renewable energy systems. LHES compensate for the energy lack when these systems are at low production conditions. The present work considered a shell and tube LHES for numerical investigation of the tube rotation influence on the melting process. The simulation and calculations were carried out using ANSYS Fluent software. Paraffin wax represents the phase change material (PCM) in this work, while water was selected to be the heat transfer fluid (HTF). The calculations were carried o

Experimental work was carried out to investigate the effect of fire flame (high temperature) on specimens of one way slabs using Self Compacted Concrete (SCC). By using furnace manufactured for this purpose, twenty one reinforced concrete slab specimens were exposed to direct fire flame. All of specimens have the same dimensions. The slab specimens were cooled in two types, gradually by left them in the air and suddenly by using water. After that the specimens were tested under two point loads, to study, the effect of
different: temperature levels (300ºC, 500ºC and 700ºC), and cooling rate (gradually and sudden cooling conditions) on the concrete compressive strength, modulus of rupture, flexural strength and the behavior of reinf

Due to the potential cost saving and minimal temperature stratification, the energy storage based on phase-change materials (PCMs) can be a reliable approach for decoupling energy demand from immediate supply availability. However, due to their high heat resistance, these materials necessitate the introduction of enhancing additives, such as expanded surfaces and fins, to enable their deployment in more widespread thermal and energy storage applications. This study reports on how circular fins with staggered distribution and variable orientations can be employed for addressing the low thermal response rates in a PCM (Paraffin RT-35) triple-tube heat exchanger consisting of two heat-transfer fluids flow in opposites directions throug