Abstract

    This work deals with a numerical investigation to evaluate the utilization of a water pipe buried inside a roof to reduce the heat gain and minimize the transmission of heat energy inside the conditioning space in summer season.     The numerical results of this paper showed that the reduction in heat gain and energy saving could be occurred with specific values of parameters, like the number of pipes per square meter, the ratio of pipe diameter to the roof thickness, and the pipe inlet water temperature. Comparing with a normal roof (without pipes), the results indicated a significant reduction in energy heat gain which is about 37.8% when the number of pipes per m

The aerodynamic characteristics of general three-dimensional rectangular wings are considered using non-linear interaction between two-dimensional viscous-inviscid panel method and vortex ring method. The potential flow of a two-dimensional airfoil by the pioneering Hess & Smith method was used with viscous laminar, transition and turbulent boundary layer to solve flow about complex configuration of airfoils including stalling effect. Viterna method was used to extend the aerodynamic characteristics of the specified airfoil to high angles of attacks. A modified vortex ring method was used to find the circulation values along span wise direction of the wing and then interacted with sectional circulation obtained by Kutta-Joukowsky theorem of

In Computer-based applications, there is a need for simple, low-cost devices for user authentication. Biometric authentication methods namely keystroke dynamics are being increasingly used to strengthen the commonly knowledge based method (example a password) effectively and cheaply for many types of applications. Due to the semi-independent nature of the typing behavior it is difficult to masquerade, making it useful as a biometric. In this paper, C4.5 approach is used to classify user as authenticated user or impostor by combining unigraph features (namely Dwell time (DT) and flight time (FT)) and digraph features (namely Up-Up Time (UUT) and Down-Down Time (DDT)). The results show that DT enhances the performance of digraph features by i

The Dirichlet process is an important fundamental object in nonparametric Bayesian modelling, applied to a wide range of problems in machine learning, statistics, and bioinformatics, among other fields. This flexible stochastic process models rich data structures with unknown or evolving number of clusters. It is a valuable tool for encoding the true complexity of real-world data in computer models. Our results show that the Dirichlet process improves, both in distribution density and in signal-to-noise ratio, with larger sample size; achieves slow decay rate to its base distribution; has improved convergence and stability; and thrives with a Gaussian base distribution, which is much better than the Gamma distribution. The performance depen

Enhancement of the performance for hybrid solar air conditioning system was presented in this paper. The refrigerant temperature leaving the condenser was controlled using three-way valve, this valve was installed after the compressor to regulate refrigerant flow rate towards the solar system. A control system using data logger, sensors and computer was proposed to set the opening valve ratio. The function of control program using LabVIEW software is to obtain a minimum refrigerant temperature from the condenser outlet to enhance the overall COP of the unit by increasing the degree of subcooled refrigerant. A variable load electrical heater with coiled pipe was used instead of the solar collector and the storage tank to simulate the sola

This paper features the modeling and design of a pole placement and output Feedback control technique for the Active Vibration Control (AVC) of a smart flexible cantilever beam for a Single Input Single Output (SISO) case. Measurements and actuation actions done by using patches of piezoelectric layer, it is bonded to the master structure as sensor/actuator at a certain position of the cantilever beam.
The smart structure is modeled based on the concept of piezoelectric theory, Bernoulli -Euler beam theory, using Finite Element Method (FEM) and the state space techniques. The number of modes is reduced using the controllability and observability grammians retaining the first three
dominant vibratory modes, and for the reduced syste

Peak ground acceleration (PGA) is one of the critical factors that affect the determination of earthquake intensity. PGA is generally utilized to describe ground motion in a particular zone and is able to efficiently predict the parameters of site ground motion for the design of engineering structures. Therefore, novel models are developed to forecast PGA in the case of the Iraqi database, which utilizes the particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach. A data set of 187 historical ground-motion recordings in Iraq’s tectonic regions was used to build the explicit proposed models. The proposed PGA models relate to different seismic parameters, including the magnitude of the earthquake (Mw), average shear-wave velocity (VS30), focal depth (FD

In this paper, effective slab width for the composite beams is investigated with special emphasis on the effect of web openings. A three dimensional finite element analysis, by using finite element code ANSYS, is employed to investigate shear lag phenomenon and the resulting effective slab width adopted in the classical T-beam approach. According to case studies and comparison with limitations and rules stipulated by different standards and codes of practice it is found that web openings presence and panel proportion are the most critical factors affecting effective slab width, whereas concrete slab thickness and steel beam depth are less significant. The presence of web opening reduces effective slab width by about 21%.

Addition of bioactive materials such as Titanium oxide (TiO₂), and incorporation of bio inert ceramic such as alumina (Al₂O₃), into polyetheretherketone (PEEK) has been adopted as an effective approach to improve bone-implant interfaces. In this paper, hot pressing technique has been adopted as a production method. This technique gave a homogenous distribution of the additive materials in the proposed composite biomaterial. Different compositions and compounding temperatures have been applied to all samples. Mechanical properties and animal model have been studied in all different production conditions. The results of these new TiO₂/Al₂O₃/PEEK biocomposites with different

Two different polyvinyl alcohol/polyvinyl chloride (PVA/PVC) hollow fiber composite nanofiltration membranes were prepared after PVC hollow fiber membranes were coated using dip-coating method with PVA aqueous solution, which was composed of PVA, fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether (AEO9), and water [PVA/AEO9/water (4:0.5:95.5) wt%]. Effect of two different PVC hollow fiber immersion times in coating solution were studied. Cross-section, internal and external surfaces of the PVC hollow fibers and PVA/PVC composite nanofiltration membranes structures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), pure water permeation flux and solutes rejection. It was found that, the coating layer thickness on the outer surface of the 19 wt% P