The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of moisture concrete of clayey soil on the concrete slabs placed directly over it. This experimental study presents the mechanical properties of the concrete slab when placed on different clayey soil moisture content ranging from 0% to the optimum moisture content of 35%. The tests were performed on soil concrete specimens of 25*30*50 mm exposed to sprayed water curing conditions for 28 days. Tests of compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity, crack depth and crack width were investigated through this paper. An ejection relationship between compressive strength of concrete and water content in the soil was observed, with a 26% increase with water increasing from 0% to 35%. The opposite was observed in the ultrasonic pulse velocity test, with a decrease of 58% from 0% to the highest water content ratio. As for crack depth and width, it recorded the highest depth and lowest width at 0% water content due to the increased susceptibility of the soil to the absorption of water from the concrete when it’s totally dry. The experiment has shown that the soil moisture content is considered as a critical factor in controlling concrete cracking, and its variation has considerable implications for concrete crack growth.
The chemical additives used to enhance the properties of drilling mud cause damage to humans and the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to search for alternative additives to add them to the drilling mud. Thus, this study investigates the effects of pomegranate peel and grape seed powders as natural waste when added to un-weighted water-based mud. The test includes measurements of the rheological properties and filtration, as well as the alkanity and density of the drilling mud. The results showed a decrease in PH values with an increase in the concentrations of pomegranate peel or grapeseed, and a decrease in mud density with an increase in powders of pomegranate peel and grape seed concentrations that resulted f
... Show MoreThe moisture sorption isotherms of Mefenamic acid tablets were investigated by measuring the experimental equilibrium moisture content (EMC) using the static method of saturated salt solutions at three temperatures (25, 35, and 45°C) and water activity range from 0.056 to 0.8434. The results showed that EMC increased when relative humidity increased and the sorption capacity decreased, the tablets became less hygroscopic and more stable when the temperature increased at constant water activity. The sorption curves had a sigmoid shape, type II according to Brunauer’s classification. The hysteresis effect was significant along with the whole sorption process. The results were fitted to three models: Oswin, Smith, and Guggen
... Show MoreThis 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
... Show MoreThis paper presents an efficient methodology to design modified evaporative air-cooler for winter air-conditioning in Baghdad city as well as using it for summer air-conditioning by adding a heating process after the humidification process. laboratory tests were performed on a direct evaporative cooler (DEC) followed by passing the air on hot water through heat exchanger placed in the coolers air duct exit. The tests were conducted on the 2nd of December /2011 when the ambient temperature was 8.1°C and the relative humidity was (68%). The air flow rate is assumed to vary between 0.069 to 0.209 kg/s with constant water flow rate of 0.03 kg/s in the heat exchanger. The performance is reported in terms of effectiveness of DEC, satura
... Show MoreA localized stenosis or aneurysm is a discontinuity that presents the pulse wave produced by the contracting heart with a reflection site. However, neither wave speed ( c) in these discontinuities nor the size of reflection in relation to the size of the discontinuity has been adequately studied before. Therefore, the aim of this work is to study the propagation of waves traversing flexible tubes in the presence of aneurysm and stenosis in vitro. We manufactured different sized four stenosis and four aneurysm silicone sections, connected one at a time to a flexible ‘mother’ tube, at the inlet of which a single semi-sinusoidal wave was generated. Pressure and velocity were measured simultaneously 25 cm downstream the inlet of th
... Show MoreThe ejector refrigeration system is a desirable choice to reduce energy consumption. A Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD simulation using the ANSYS package was performed to investigate the flow inside the ejector and determine the performance of a small-scale steam ejector. The experimental results showed that at the nozzle throat diameter of 2.6 mm and the evaporator temperature of 10oC, increasing boiler temperature from 110oC to 140oC decreases the entrainment ratio by 66.25%. At the boiler temperature of 120oC, increasing the evaporator temperature from 7.5 to 15 oC increases the entrainment ratio by 65.57%. While at the boiler temperature of 120oC and
... Show MoreThis paper demonstrates an experimental and numerical study aimed to compare the influence of openings of different configurations on the flexural behavior of prestressed concrete rafters. The experimental program consisted of testing six simply supported prestressed concrete rafters; 5 rafters are perforated, and the other one is solid as a reference. All rafters were tested under monotonic midpoint load. The variable which has been investigated in this work was the opening’s configuration (quadrilateral or circular) with the same upper and lower chords depths. The results indicate improvement in the beam flexural behavior using the circular openings compared to the quadrilateral o