Exposure of reinforced concrete buildings to an accidental fire may result in cracking and loss in the bearing capacity of their major components, columns, beams, and slabs. It is a challenge for structural engineers to develop efficient retrofitting techniques that enable RC slabs to restore their structural integrity, after being exposed to intense fires for a long period of time. Experimental
investigation was carried out on twenty one slab specimens made of self compacting concrete, eighteen of them are retrofitted with CFRP sheets after burning and loading till failure while three of them (which represent control specimens) are retrofitted with CFRP sheet after loading till failure without burning. All slabs had been tested in a simply supported span and subjected to two-point loading. The main variables were the effect of different temperature levels (300ºC, 500ºC and 700ºC),different concrete compressive strength (20MPa, 30MPa and 40MPa) and cooling rate (gradually and sudden cooling conditions) on the behavior of retrofitted one way slabs .The structural response of each slab specimen was investigated in terms of load-deflection behavior, ultimate load carrying
capacity and mode of failure. The experimental results, generally, indicate that slabs retrofitted using CFRP sheets restored flexural strength values nearly equal to or lower than those of the reference slabs, the retrofitted slabs exhibited larger deflection than the control slabs at ultimate loads. Retrofitted control slabs after loading regained about 93.95% to 97.92% of their original load capacity
(before retrofitting) while the other slabs regained from 42.% to 84% of the load capacity of the original control specimens. Most of the tested slabs failed by concrete crushing at mid span and partial debonding of certain retrofitting systems was also observed for a few cases
In this study water-soluble N-Acetyl Cysteine Capped-Cadmium Telluride QDs (NAC/CdTe nanocrystals) using N-acetyl cysteine as a stabilizer were prepared to investigate the utility of quantum dots (QDs) in distinguishing damaged DNA, (extracted from blood samples of leukaemia patients), from intact DNA (extracted from blood samples of healthy individuals) to be used for biosensing application. Based on the optical characterization of the prepared QDs, the XRD results revealed the formation of the NAC-CdTe-QDs with a grain size of 7.1nm. Whereas, the SEM test showed that the spherical size of the NAC-CdTe-QDs lies within 11~33nm. NAC-CdTe-QDs have superior PL emission properties at of 550nm and UV-Vis absorption peak at 300nm. The energy gap
... Show MoreIn the present investigation two different types of fiber reinforced polymer composites were prepared by hand lay-up method using three different parameters (curing temperature, pressing load and fiber volume fraction). These composites were prepared from the polyester resin as the matrix material reinforced with glass fibers as first group of samples and mat Kevlar fibers as the second group, both with different volume fractions (4%, 8%, and 12%) of fibers. They were then tested by tensile strength and impact strength. The main objective in this study is to use Taguchi method for predicting the better parameters that give the better tensile and impact strength to the composites, and then preparing composites at
... Show MoreRutting is a crucial concern impacting asphalt concrete pavements’ stability and long-term performance, negatively affecting vehicle drivers’ comfort and safety. This research aims to evaluate the permanent deformation of pavement under different traffic and environmental conditions using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) prediction model. The model was built based on the outcomes of an experimental uniaxial repeated loading test of 306 cylindrical specimens. Twelve independent variables representing the materials’ properties, mix design parameters, loading settings, and environmental conditions were implemented in the model, resulting in a total of 3214 data points. The network accomplished high prediction accuracy with an R
... Show MoreThis paper proposes two hybrid feature subset selection approaches based on the combination (union or intersection) of both supervised and unsupervised filter approaches before using a wrapper, aiming to obtain low-dimensional features with high accuracy and interpretability and low time consumption. Experiments with the proposed hybrid approaches have been conducted on seven high-dimensional feature datasets. The classifiers adopted are support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and K-nearest neighbour (KNN). Experimental results have demonstrated the advantages and usefulness of the proposed methods in feature subset selection in high-dimensional space in terms of the number of selected features and time spe
... Show MoreComplex and complex psychological processes are complexand are the result of convergence, convergence and interaction between variables, including the subject of mediation or group or individual and psychological processes involved in the variance, including - personal knowledge and emotional tone (Osman, 1987, p. 8 ). An emotionally balanced individual has the ability to endure and delay meeting needs and has the ability to endure as much as possible. Of the emotional balance of the individual is characterized by emotional stability, show some signs of emotional agitation toward any kind of opposition, anger and realism in self-life and discipline (Swift, 1996, p. 44) Van, et al. , Indicates that people with low emotional balance,
... Show MoreProductivity estimating of ready mixed concrete batch plant is an essential tool for the successful completion of the construction process. It is defined as the output of the system per unit of time. Usually, the actual productivity values of construction equipment in the site are not consistent with the nominal ones. Therefore, it is necessary to make a comprehensive evaluation of the nominal productivity of equipment concerning the effected factors and then re-evaluate them according to the actual values.
In this paper, the forecasting system was employed is an Artificial Intelligence technique (AI). It is represented by Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to establish the predicted model to estimate wet ready mixe
... Show MoreBackground: Oil refinery workers are continuously exposed to numerous hazardous materials. Petroleum contains the heavy metals as a natural constituent or as additives. These metals induce the production of ROS which associated with an oxidative damage to DNA, proteins, and lipids. This study was conducted to assess the salivary levels of heavy metals, salivary oxidative status, oral immunological activity (salivary sIgA) and assessment of the oral findings among the workers of Al-Daura oil refinery in Baghdad city. Subjects, Materials and Methods: This study was done in Al-Daura oil refinery; samples consist of 60 workers involved in refinery processes (study group) and 20 non-workers (control group). Oral examination and saliva collection
... Show MoreObjective: This in vitro study is aimed to compare and evaluate the cyclic fatigue of four varying NiTi rotary instrumentation systems. Method: In this study, four types of rotary files were used in four groups (10 files for each group), namely, Group A: Wave One Gold; Group B: AF Blue R3; Group C: One Curve; Group D: F6 SkyTaper. These groups were evaluated by a cyclic fatigue apparatus to measure cyclic fatigue resistance within the artificial metallic simulating canal that has a 60 angle of curvature, the curvature radius was 5 mm, whereas the inner diameter of the canal was 1.5 mm. All the files were rotated in artificial canals until they fracture. The resistance to cyclic fatigue was determined by counting the number of cycles to frac
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