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
Owing to the energy crisis and pollution problems of today, investigations have concentrated on
decreasing fuel consumption and on lowering the concentration of toxic components in combustion
products by using non-petroleum, renewable, sustainable and non-polluting fuels. While conventional energy sources such as natural gas, oil and coal are non-renewable, alcohol can be coupled to renewable and sustainable energy sources.
In this study, the combustion characteristics of diesel fuel and methanol blends were compared.
The tests were performed at steady state conditions in a four-cylinder DI diesel engine at full load at
1500-rpm engine speed. The experimental results showed that diesel methanol blends provided
12.7% inc
This work is an experimental study about the effects of gas pressure and magnetic field on plasma characteristics produced in an internal hollow electrodes discharge (HED) system. The results show that the breakdown voltage values increase with increasing the working pressure (especially with the presence of a magnetic field). The breakdown voltage depends on the p.d. product, where p is the gas pressure and d is the distance between the electrodes. While the values of current discharge decrease with the increase of the working pressure. The temperature of electron and the number density of electron are calculated from the Boltzmann method and the broadening of Stark, respectively. The results showed that the electron number d
... Show MoreGas hydrate formation poses a significant threat to the production, processing, and transportation of natural gas. Accurate predictions of gas hydrate equilibrium conditions are essential for designing the gas production systems at safe operating conditions and mitigating the problems caused by hydrates formation. A new hydrate correlation for predicting gas hydrate equilibrium conditions was obtained for different gas mixtures containing methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The new correlation is proposed for a pressure range of 1.7-330 MPa, a temperature range of 273-320 K, and for gas mixtures with specific gravity range of 0.553 to 1. The nonlinear regression technique was applie
In this present paper, an experimental study of some plasma characteristics in dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) system using several variables, such as different frequencies and using two different electrodes metals(aluminium (Al) and copper (Cu)), is represented. The discharge plasma was produced by an AC power supply source of 6 and 7 kHz frequencies for the nitrogen gas spectrum and for two different electrodes metals(Al and Cu). Optical emission spectrometer was used to study plasma properties (such as electron temperature ( ), electron number density ( ), Debye length ( ), and plasma frequency ( )). In addition, images were analysed for the plasma emission intensity at atmospheric air pressure.
In this research the active volume for a number of solid-state detectors of the type of high-purity germanium (HPGe) crystal was evaluated with different radii and depths using scanning method for diagonal (front) and lateral (side). It has been used for this purpose Monte-Carlo efficiency program after its development by adding a subroutine-program for its (subroutine scanning).Also a program has been written to calculate the stopping power and range for incident charged particle on the detector, in order to determine the exact sufficient energy to stop it inside the detector material. The calculations of our results of efficiency were compared with the results of published efficiency and the comparison is very good in terms of improvin
... Show MoreEvery laboratory needs to establish its own community-based reference intervals for the achievement of the optimal and true diagnosis in the clinical practice. However, such vital experimentations are not been conducted sufficiently in Halabja city and Kurdistan region of Iraq as a whole. This study is an attempt to introduce for the first time a set of reference intervals of lipid profile variables that are based on the healthy and asymptomatic adult population of Halabja using international standards. The methodology recruited for this purpose is based on the IFCC, CLSI, and WHO’s standards, in which the study population was subjected to strict exclusion criteria for the sake of higher accuracy in the results
... Show MoreA novel robust finite time disturbance observer (RFTDO) based on an independent output-finite time composite control (FTCC) scheme is proposed for an air conditioning-system temperature and humidity regulation. The variable air volume (VAV) of the system is represented by two first-order mathematical models for the temperature and humidity dynamics. In the temperature loop dynamics, a RFTDO temperature (RFTDO-T) and an FTCC temperature (FTCC-T) are designed to estimate and reject the lumped disturbances of the temperature subsystem. In the humidity loop, a robust output of the FTCC humidity (FTCC-H) and RFTDO humidity (RFTDO-H) are also designed to estimate and reject the lumped disturbances of the humidity subsystem. Based on Lyapunov theo
... Show MoreIn this paper, an attempt was made to measure and interpret the impact of several variables on global maritime transport, including: OECD industrial productions, high growth rates of some developing countries, and growth in world GDP. These variables contribute to higher rates of maritime transport revenues of 800 billion dollars annually; in the form of numerical sequences. The dry canal in Iraq was assumed to transfer 99 million tons of goods annually. This was made sure through the economic feasibility of the difference between maritime and land transport through railways. The effect of geographical and anthropological nature of Iraq on this project was studied too. Our findings indicated that the project will not drive growth
... Show MoreThis research concentrate on cultivated Iraqi Agave attenuata dried leaves and roots, because of little studies on this plant especially on the root that lead to the eager of study and comparison of phytochemical constituents between leaves and root. Extraction of bioactive constituents was carried out using several solvents with increasing polarity (n-hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol) by soxhlet apparatus. Steroidal saponins in Agave genus is well documented in many species, lightening the minds in this research on extraction method which is specific for steroidal saponins. Phytochemical screening was done by GC/MS for n-hexane fraction, qualitative and quantitative estimation of several bioactive constituents (caffe
... Show MoreMethotrexate (MTX) was used for treatment of malignancies and now is widely used in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. In this research the evaluation of the effects of MTX on some liver enzymes and lipid profile was studied. Twenty four adult female mice divided into three groups (8 mice each). The first two groups were treated with MTX while the third group was used as a control. MTX was intraperitoneally given at 50 µg/ml and 75 µg/ml to the first and second groups respectively for 35 days ,whereas the control group was intraperitoneally injected with normal saline. The results showed a significant (p<0.05) increase in serum levels of glutamic oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT) , glutamic pyruric transaminase (GPT), Alkaline pho
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