This paper reports test results and describes a numerical investigation of the effectiveness of using carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) fabrics for strengthening concrete cylinders that have been undamaged and damaged due to heating under preload. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether there is any difference in the performance of CFRP-wrapped cylinders if the wrapping is done under preload, and those for which neither heating, cooling nor wrapping was done under preload. The cylinders were exposed to 30% of maximum load at ambient temperature during heating and cooling before being wrapped under preload. Of 18 Ø 100 × 200 mm identical cylinders, 6 were left as control samples without heating, 12 were exposed t

In this study, composite materials consisting of Activated Carbon (AC) and Zeolite were prepared for application in the removal of methylene blue and lead from an aqueous solution. The optimum synthesis method involves the use of metakaolinization and zeolitization, in the presence of activated carbon from kaolin, to form Zeolite. First, Kaolin was thermally activated into amorphous kaolin (metakaolinization); then the resultant metakaolin was attacked by alkaline, transforming it into crystalline zeolite (zeolitization). Using nitrogen adsorption and SEM techniques, the examination and characterization of composite materials confirmed the presence of a homogenous distribution of Zeolite throughout the activated carbon.

There has been a growing interest in the use of chaotic techniques for enabling secure communication in recent years. This need has been motivated by the emergence of a number of wireless services which require the channel to provide very low bit error rates (BER) along with information security. As more and more information is transacted over wireless media, there has been increasing criminal activity directed against such systems. This paper investigates the feasibility of using chaotic communications over Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) channels. We have studied the performance of differential chaos shift keying (DCSK) with 2×2 Alamouti scheme and 2×1 Alamouti scheme for different chaotic maps over additive white Gaussian noise (

This project sought to fabricate a flexible gas sensor based on a short functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) network for nitrogen dioxide gas detection. The network was prepared by filtration from the suspension (FFS) method and modified by coating with a layer of polypyrrole conductive polymer (PPy) prepared by the oxidative chemical polymerization to improve the properties of the network. The structural, optical, and morphological properties of the f-MWCNTs and f-MWCNTs/PPy network were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourie-transform infrared (FTIR), with an AFM (atomic force microscopy). XRD proved that the structure of f-MWCNTs is unaffected by the synthesis procedure. The FTIR spectra verified the existence o

Background: This in vitro study measure and compare the effect of light curing tip distance on the depth of cure by measuring vickers microhardness value on two recently launched bulk fill resin based composites Tetric EvoCeram Bulk Fill and Surefil SDR Flow with 4 mm thickness in comparison to Filtek Z250 Universal Restorative with 2 mm thickness. In addition, measure and compare the bottom to top microhardness ratio with different light curing tip distances. Materials and Method: One hundred fifty composite specimens were obtained from two cylindrical plastic molds the first one for bulk fill composites (Tetric EvoCeram Bulk Fill and Surefil SDR Flow) with 4 mm diameter and 4 mm depth, the second one for Filtek Z250 Universal Restorative

Photonic crystal fiber interferometers (PCFIs) are widely used for sensing applications. This work presented solid core-PCFs based on Mach-Zehnder modal interferometer for sensing refractive index. The general structure of sensor was applied by splicing short lengths of PCF in both sides with conventional single mode fiber (SMF-28).To apply modal interferometer theory collapsing technique based on fusion splicing used to excite higher order modes (LP01 and LP11). A high sensitive optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) was used to monitor and record the transmitted wavelength. This work studied a Mach-Zahnder interferometer refractive index sensor based on splicing point tapered SMF-PCF-SMF. Relation between refractive index sensitivity and tape

Document source identification in printer forensics involves determining the origin of a printed document based on characteristics such as the printer model, serial number, defects, or unique printing artifacts. This process is crucial in forensic investigations, particularly in cases involving counterfeit documents or unauthorized printing. However, consistent pattern identification across various printer types remains challenging, especially when efforts are made to alter printer-generated artifacts. Machine learning models are often used in these tasks, but selecting discriminative features while minimizing noise is essential. Traditional KNN classifiers require a careful selection of distance metrics to capture relevant printing

Manual fruit picking is labor-intensive and can damage fruit. Fully mechanized picking is efficient, but it also risks fruit damage. Therefore, semi-automated tools are needed to improve bitter orange picking. This paper presents a smart manual picker designed to facilitate picking while predicting fruit maturity based on picking force as well as various chemical and physical parameters using machine learning (ML). The study methodology consists of five stages: (1) manufacturing the smart picker, (2) picking 50 bitter orange samples, (3) measuring the characteristics of the bitter oranges in the laboratory, (4) training different ML models, and (5) identifying the most accurate model for predicting fruit maturity. The results indicate that

A novel fractal design scheme has been introduced in this paper to generate microstrip bandpass filter designs with miniaturized sizes for wireless applications. The presented fractal scheme is based on Minkowski-like prefractal geometry. The space-filling property and self-similarity of this fractal geometry has found to produce reduced size symmetrical structures corresponding to the successive iteration levels. The resulting filter designs are with sizes suitable for use in modern wireless communication systems. The performance of each of the generated bandpass filter structures up to the 2^nd iteration has been analyzed using a method of moments (MoM) based software IE3D, which is widely adopted in microwave research and in