Soft clays are generally sediments deposited by rivers, seas, or lakes. These soils are fine-grained plastic soils with appreciable clay content and are characterized by high compressibility and low shear strength. To deal with soft soil problems there is more than one method that can be used such as soil replacement, preloading, stone column, sand drains, lime stabilization and Prefabricated Vertical Drains, PVDs. A numerical modeling of PVD with vacuum pressure was analyzed to investigate the effect of this technique on the consolidation behavior of fully and different depths of partially saturated soft soils.  Laboratory experiments were also conducted by using a specially-designed large consol

ABSTRACT Background: Bracket rebonding is a common problem in orthodontics which may result in many drawbacks. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effects of application of two enamel protective agents “Icon” and “ProSeal” on shear bond strength before and after rebonding of stainless steel orthodontic brackets using conventional orthodontic adhesive and to assess the site of bond failure. Materials and methods: Fifty sound extracted human upper first premolar teeth were selected and randomly divided into two equal groups; the first time bonding and the rebonding groups (n=30). Each group was subdivided into control, Icon and ProSeal subgroups. The enamel protective agents were applied after etching (precondi

       Staphylococcus aureus is a common pathogenic agent due to its ability to cause various types of infections, ranging from mild skin infections to sever systemic diseases. One of the most virulence factors of this bacterium is its ability to from biofilms on solid surfaces by anchoring the planktonic cells and by producing a protective layer of extra polymeric substances. Biofilm formation is controlled through many genes. The most important ones are icaA and icaD. Dentures are prosthetic devices that are made of different materials to replace lost teeth. The aim of this study is to examine the ability of different types of denture materials to support the biofilm formation of S. aureus at phenotypic level by detecting ba

Background: The most common reason for re-making a maxillofacial prosthesis is the degradation of the mechanical properties of the silicone. Aim of this study: To assess some mechanical properties of VST-50F maxillofacial silicone reinforced with a composite of silicon dioxide nanoparticle and polyamide-6 microparticle before and after artificial aging. Material and Method: Preparing 240 samples tested for tear strength, tensile strength and elongation percentage, hardness, and roughness before and after aging. The Silicon dioxide was added in concentrations of 1% by weight and Polyamide-6 in the concentration of 0.25% and 0.5% by weight to the VST-50F RTV maxillofacial silicone. The one-way ANOVA and post hoc tests were used for inferentia

In this work, 332 Al alloy was prepared and reinforced with (0.5% and 1%) nano-Al₂O₃ particles. The prepared unreinforced and reinforced 332 Al alloy with nano-Al₂O₃ were solution heat treated (T6) at 510 ̊C and aged at 225 ̊C with different times (1, 3, and 5 h). Hardness test was performed on all the prepared alloys. All prepared alloys were dry slided under different applied loads (5, 10, 15, and 20 N) against steel counterface surface using pin on disk apparatus. The results showed that refinement effect was observed after addition of nano-Al₂O₃ particles and a change in silicon morphology after performing the solution heat treatment. The results also showed that har

Background: This in vitro study was carried out to investigate the effect of post space regions (coronal, middle and apical), the effect of post types ( Manually Milled Zirconia post, Prefabricated Fiber post, prefabricated Zirconia post) and the type of cement used (GIC, self-adhesive resin cement) on the bond strength between the posts and root dentin by using push-out test. Material and methods: Forty eight mandibular premolars extracted for orthodontic reasons (single rooted) were instrumented with ProTaper system (hand use) and obturated with gutta percha for ProTaper using AH26® root canal sealer following the manufacturer instructions. After 24 hours, post space was prepared using Zirix and Glassix drills no.3 creating 8 mm dept

This study investigates the surgical and thermal effects on oral soft tissues produced by CO2 laser emitting at 10.6 micrometers with three different fluences 490.79, 1226.99 and 1840.4 J/cm2. These effects are specifically; incision depth, incision width and the tissue damage width and depth. The results showed that increasing the fluence and /or the number of beam passes increase the average depths of ablation. Moreover, increasing the fluence and the number of beam passes increase the adjacent tissue damage in width and depth. Surgeons using CO2 laser should avoid multiple pulses of the laser beam over the same area, to avoid unintentional tissue damage.

Background: The aim of this study was to comparatively evaluate the push out bond strength (PBS) of root canal fillings using four different obturation techniques (single cone (SC), cold lateral compaction (CLC), continuous wave (CW), and carrier based gutta percha (CBG)). Materials and Methods: Forty mandibular premolar decoronated and instrumented with rotary ProTaper to F3 then teeth were divided randomly into 4 groups of 10 teeth for each as follow: group (I) single- cone obturation with matched-taper gutta-percha, group (II) cold lateral compaction technique, group (III) continuous wave of obturation technique, and group( IV) carrier based gutta-percha technique. Zinc oxide eugenol (ZOE) sealer was used as a root canal sealer for the