Utilizing phase change materials in thermal energy storage systems is commonly considered as an alternative solution for the effective use of energy. This study presents numerical simulations of the charging process for a multitube latent heat thermal energy storage system. A thermal energy storage model, consisting of five tubes of heat transfer fluids, was investigated using Rubitherm phase change material (RT35) as the. The locations of the tubes were optimized by applying the Taguchi method. The thermal behavior of the unit was evaluated by considering the liquid fraction graphs, streamlines, and isotherm contours. The numerical model was first verified compared with existed experimental data from the literature. The outcomes re

The goal of this paper is to design a robust controller for controlling a pendulum
system. The control of nonlinear systems is a common problem that is facing the researchers in control systems design. The Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) is the best solution for controlling a nonlinear system. The classical SMC consists from two phases. The first phase is the reaching phase and the second is the sliding phase. The SMC suffers from the chattering phenomenon which is considered as a severe problem and undesirable property. It is a zigzag motion along the switching surface. In this paper, the chattering is reduced by using a saturation function instead of sign function. In spite of SMC is a good method for controlling a nonlinear system b

he paper presents the results of exposure of normal concrete to high temperatures (400 and 700°C). In addition to the exposure of steel reinforcement bar Ø 12 mm, where two types of steel reinforcement burning situations were performed. Directly exposed to high temperatures (400 and 700°C) and others were covered by concrete layer (15 mm). From the experimental results of fire exposure for 1 hour of 400 and 700°C and gradually cooled, it was found that the residual average percentage of compressive strength of concrete was 85.3 and 41.4%, while the residual average percentage of modulus of elasticity of concrete was 75 and 48%, respectively. The residual average percentage of yielding tensile stress (Ø 12 mm) after burning and cooling

For many years, the construction industry damages have been overlooked such as unreasonable consumption of resources in addition to producing a lot of construction waste but with global awareness growth towards the sustainable development issues, the sustainable construction practices have been adopted, taking into account the environment and human safety. The research aims to propose a management system for construction practices which could be adopted during constructing different types of sustainable buildings besides formulating flowcharts which clarify the required whole phases of sustainable buildings life cycle. The research includes two parts: theoretical part which generally ,handles the sustainability concepts at construction i

The main purpose of this research aims to measure the role of banking strategies marketing in achieving competitive advantage within a sample of Iraqi private banks, and in order to achieve this purpose,  the researcher depend on number of sober research approaches which consisted of descriptive, analytical and practical methodologies, to strengthen concepts addressed by the research, size of the sample was (56) individuals which makes up the senior leadership represented (Chairman and members of the Board of Directors, Commissioners and their assistants and department heads) while the primary tool for research (questionnaire), which has been designed based on a number of solemn scientific metrics, after adapted these metrics commen

Contamination of surface and groundwater with excessive concentrations of fluoride is of significant health hazard. Adsorption of fluoride onto waste materials of no economic value could be a potential approach for the treatment of fluoride-bearing water. This experimental and modeling study was devoted to investigate for the first the fluoride removal using unmodified waste granular brick (WGB) in a fixed bed running in continuous mode. Characterization of WGB was carried out by FT-IR, SEM, and EDX analysis. The batch mode experiments showed that they were affected by several parameters including contact time, initial pH, and sorbent dosage. The best values of these parameters that provided maximum removal percent (82%) with the in

In line with the advancement of hardware technology and increasing consumer demands for new functionalities and innovations, software applications grew tremendously in term of size over the last decade. This sudden increase in size has a profound impact as far as testing is concerned. Here, more and more unwanted interactions among software systems components, hardware, and operating system are to be expected, rendering increased possibility of faults. To address this issue, many useful interaction-based testing techniques (termed t-way strategies) have been developed in the literature. As an effort to promote awareness and encourage its usage, this chapter surveys the current state-of-the-art and reviews the state-of-practices in t