This study aims to investigate the behavior and strength of self-compacted ferrocement slabs under punching shear load. Experimental results of thirteen square ferrocement slabs of 500×500 mm simply supported on all edges are presented.  The main parameters investigated include the volume fraction of reinforcement, slab thickness and size of load-bearing plate. The load deflection and cracking characteristics of the tested slabs are studied and compared.  The test results showed that the volume fraction of wire mesh has significant effect on both ultimate load and displacement. The increase of slab thickness leads to decrease in deflection values and increase in stiffness of slabs. Both ductility and stiffness increase as the

An experimental study on a KIA pride (SAIPA 131) car model with scale of 1:14 in the wind tunnel was made beside the real car tests. Some of the modifications to passive flow control which are (vortex generator, spoiler and slice diffuser) were added to the car to reduce the drag force which its undesirable characteristic that increase fuel consumption and exhaust toxic gases. Two types of calculations were used to determine the drag force acting on the car body. Firstly, is by the integrating the values of pressure recorded along the pressure taps (for the wind tunnel and the real car testing), secondly, is by using one component balance device (wind tunnel testing) to measure the force. The results show that, the avera

Background: This study was performed to determine the effect of aging of different types of composite material restorations on: Shear bond strength (SBS) to light cure and no mix chemical cure orthodontic adhesives with sapphire bracket and the debonding failure sites. Materials and methods: One hundred forty four composite disks were made from three different composite resin materials which are: 3M Filtek Z250, 3M filtek Z350 and 3M Valux plus, each group with (48) disks each, then according to the duration of storage each group was subdivided into two equal groups one of them stored for one day and the other was stored for one month, then each group was further subdivided into two equal subgroups with (12) disks each one bonded with ligh

The utilization of recycled brick tile powder as a replacement for conventional filler in the asphalt concrete mix has been studied in this research. This research evaluates the effectiveness of recycled brick tile powder and determines its optimum replacement level. Using recycled brick tile powder is significant from an environmental standpoint as it is a waste product from construction activities. Sixteen asphalt concrete samples were produced, and eight were soaked for a day. Samples contained 5% Bitumen, 2% to 5% brick tile powder, and conventional stone dust filler. The properties of samples were evaluated using the Marshall test. It was observed that the resistance to stiffness and deformation of asphalt concrete

In this paper new methods were presented based on technique of differences which is the difference- based modified jackknifed generalized ridge regression estimator(DMJGR) and difference-based generalized  jackknifed ridge regression estimator(DGJR), in estimating the parameters of linear part of the partially linear model. As for the nonlinear part represented by the nonparametric function, it was estimated using Nadaraya Watson smoother. The partially linear model was compared using these proposed methods with other estimators based on differencing technique through the MSE comparison criterion in simulation study.

Solar module operating temperature is the second major factor affects the performance of solar photovoltaic panels after the amount of solar radiation. This paper presents a performance comparison of mono-crystalline Silicon (mc-Si), poly-crystalline Silicon (pc-Si), amorphous Silicon (a-Si) and Cupper Indium Gallium di-selenide (CIGS) photovoltaic technologies under Climate Conditions of Baghdad city. Temperature influence on the solar modules electric output parameters was investigated experimentally and their temperature coefficients was calculated. These temperature coefficients are important for all systems design and sizing. The experimental results revealed that the pc-Si module showed a decrease in open circuit v

            Semi-parametric regression models have been studied in a variety of applications and scientific fields due to their high flexibility in dealing with data that has problems, as they are characterized by the ease of interpretation of the parameter part while retaining the flexibility of the non-parametric part. The response variable or explanatory variables can have outliers, and the OLS approach have the sensitivity to outliers. To address this issue, robust (resistance) methods were used, which are less sensitive in the presence of outlier values in the data. This study aims to estimate the partial regression model using the robust estimation method with the wavel

Shumblan (SH) is one of the most undesirable aquatic plants widespread in the irrigation channels and water bodies. This work focuses on boosting the biogas potential of shumblan by co-digesting it with other types of wastes without employing any chemical or thermal pretreatments as done in previous studies. A maximum biogas recovery of 378 ml/g VS was reached using shumblan with cow manure as inoculum in a ratio of 1:1. The methane content of the biogas was 55%. Based on volatile solid (VS) and C/N ratios, biogas productions of 518, 434, and 580 ml/g VS were obtained when the shumblan was co-digested with food wastes (SH:F), paper wastes (SH:P), and green wastes (SH:G) respectively. No significant changes of methane contents were observ

Castellated columns are structural members that are created by breaking a rolled column along the center-line by flame after that rejoining the equivalent halves by welding such that for better structural strength against axial loading, the total column depth is increased by around 50 percent. The implementation of these institutional members will also contribute to significant economies of material value. The main objectives of this study are to study the enhancement of the load-carrying capacity of castellated columns with encasement of the columns by Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) and lacing reinforcement, and serviceability of the confined castellated columns. The Castellated columns with RPC and Lacing Reinforcement improve com

This study aimed at evaluating the torsional capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) beams externally wrapped with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials. An analytical model was described and used as a new computational procedure based on the softened truss model (STM) to predict the torsional behavior of RC beams strengthened with FRP. The proposed analytical model was validated with the existing experimental data for rectangular sections strengthened with FRP materials and considering torque-twist relationship and crack pattern at failure. The confined concrete behavior, in the case of FRP wrapping, was considered in the constitutive laws of concrete in the model. Then, an efficient algorithm was developed in MATLAB environment t