Plastic soil exhibits unfavorited geotechnical properties (when saturation), which causes negative defects to engineering structures. Different attempts (included various materials) were conducted to proffer solutions to such defects by experimenting in practical ways. On one hand, these attempts aimed to improve the engineering characteristics of plastic soil, and on the other hand, to use problematic waste materials as a stabilizer, like cement kiln dust, and to reduce environmental hazards. This paper explored the shrinkage, plasticity, and strength behavior of plastic soil enhanced with cement dust. The cement dust contents were 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by dry weight of soil. An experimental series of shrinkage and plasticity tests and unconfined compression tests were carried out to explore the effects of cement dust on the quantitative amount of shrinkage, plasticity characteristics, and shear strength experienced by plastic soil. The effects of curing on soil strength were also investigated. The finding of this paper showed that the critical behavior and plasticity of plastic soil could be reduced by mixing the soil with 15% or 20% of cement dust. The undrained shear strength, cu, of plastic soil-cement dust mixtures increased with the increasing dust content up to 20%. In fact, this strength was affected by the curing period. The best enhancement was attained when the content of cement dust was 20%, and the undrained shear strength was increased more than three times at this content.
Shallow foundations have been commonly used to transfer load to soil layer within the permissible limits of settlement based on the bearing capacity of the soil. For most practical cases, the shape of the shallow foundation is of slight significance. Also, friction resistance forces in the first layers of soils are negligible due to non-sufficient surrounding surface area and compaction conditions. However, the bearing capacity of a shallow foundation can be increased by several techniques. Geocell is one of the geosynthetic tool applied mainly to reinforce soil. This study presents a numerical approach of honeycombed geocell steel panels reinforcing the sandy soil under shallow foundation, and several parameters are investigated such as th
... Show MoreIndustrial development has recently increased, including that of plastic industries. Since plastic has a very long analytical life, it will cause environmental pollution, so studies have resorted to reusing recycled waste plastic (sustainable plastic) to produce environmentally friendly concrete (green concrete). In this research, producing environmentally friendly load-bearing concrete masonry units (blocks) was considered where five concrete mixtures were compressed at the blocks producing machine. The cement content reduced from 400 kg/m3 (B-400) to 300 kg/m3 (B-300) then to 200 kg/m3 (B-200). While (B-380) was produced using 380 kg/m3 cement and 20 kg/m3 nano-sil
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a better solution for EEG-based brain language signals classification, it is using machine learning and optimization algorithms. This project aims to replace the brain signal classification for language processing tasks by achieving the higher accuracy and speed process. Features extraction is performed using a modified Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) in this study which increases the capability of capturing signal characteristics appropriately by decomposing EEG signals into significant frequency components. A Gray Wolf Optimization (GWO) algorithm method is applied to improve the results and select the optimal features which achieves more accurate results by selecting impactful features with maximum relevance
... Show MoreIn this paper, an enhanced artificial potential field (EAPF) planner is introduced. This planner is proposed to rapidly find online solutions for the mobile robot path planning problems, when the underlying environment contains obstacles with unknown locations and sizes. The classical artificial potential field represents both the repulsive force due to the detected obstacle and the attractive force due to the target. These forces can be considered as the primary directional indicator for the mobile robot. However, the classical artificial potential field has many drawbacks. So, we suggest two secondary forces which are called the midpoint
... Show MoreEnhancing quality image fusion was proposed using new algorithms in auto-focus image fusion. The first algorithm is based on determining the standard deviation to combine two images. The second algorithm concentrates on the contrast at edge points and correlation method as the criteria parameter for the resulted image quality. This algorithm considers three blocks with different sizes at the homogenous region and moves it 10 pixels within the same homogenous region. These blocks examine the statistical properties of the block and decide automatically the next step. The resulted combined image is better in the contras
... Show MoreObjectives: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the effect of plasma treatment versus conventional treatment on the micro shear bond strength (μSBS), surface roughness, and wettability of three different CAD/CAM materials. Materials and methods: Sixty cylindrical specimens (5 mm diameter ×3 mm height) were prepared from three different CAD/CAM materials: Group A: Zirconia, Group B: Lithium disilicate, and Group C: Resin nano-ceramic. Each group was subdivided into two subgroups according to surface treatment used: Subgroup I: Conventional treatment, zirconia was sandblasted with Al2O3, while lithium disilicate and resin nano-ceramic were etched with hydrofluoric acid. Subgroup II: Plasma treatment, the surface of each material was tr
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