Eco-friendly materials are increasingly used in civil engineering to support sustainable development. Conventional concrete relies heavily on Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), the production of which contributes significantly to the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS) and fly ash can partially replace OPC, thereby reducing the environmental impact. This study investigates the effect of basalt fiber incorporation on the mechanical properties of geopolymer lightweight concrete. The concrete mixtures consisted of fly ash, slag, pumice aggregate, sand, and an alkaline activator prepared by combining sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate. The mix design included an activator-to-binder ratio of 0.45

The aim of this study is to propose reliable equations to estimate the in-situ concrete compressive strength from the non-destructive test. Three equations were proposed: the first equation considers the number of rebound hummer only, the second equation consider the ultrasonic pulse velocity only, and the third equation combines the number of rebound hummer and the ultrasonic pulse velocity. The proposed equations were derived from non-linear regression analysis and they were calibrated with the test results of 372 concrete specimens compiled from the literature. The performance of the proposed equations was tested by comparing their strength estimations with those of related existing equations from literature. Comparis

Applying load to a structural member may result in a bottle-shaped compression field especially when the width of the loading is less than the width of bearing concrete members. At the Building and Construction Department – the University of Technology-Iraq, series tests on fibre reinforced concrete specimens were carried out, subjected to compression forces at the top and bottom of the specimens to produce compression field. The effects of steel fibre content, concrete compressive strength, transverse tension reinforcement, the height of test specimen, and the ratio of the width of loading plate to specimen width were studied by testing a total of tenth normal strength concrete blocks with steel fibre and one normal s

Sensibly highlighting the hidden structures of many real-world networks has attracted growing interest and triggered a vast array of techniques on what is called nowadays community detection (CD) problem. Non-deterministic metaheuristics are proved to competitively transcending the limits of the counterpart deterministic heuristics in solving community detection problem. Despite the increasing interest, most of the existing metaheuristic based community detection (MCD) algorithms reflect one traditional language. Generally, they tend to explicitly project some features of real communities into different definitions of single or multi-objective optimization functions. The design of other operators, however, remains canonical lacking any inte

The incorporation of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) into asphalt concrete supports circular economy goals by reducing reliance on virgin materials and minimizing construction waste. However, RCA’s inherent limitations, such as high porosity, microcracking, and poor interfacial bonding, compromise the structural integrity and durability of asphalt mixtures. This study introduces sugarcane molasses (SCM), a naturally derived, carbohydrate-rich byproduct of sugarcane refining, as a novel and eco-friendly surface treatment for RCA aimed at enhancing its compatibility with asphalt binders. SCM was applied at 5-6% by weight of RCA replacing coarse aggregate at varying levels (0-100%) to assess its effect on asphalt mixture performance. A com