As an alternative to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), the alkali-activated binders have been developed with better technical characteristics and more extended durability. The Alkali-Activated Iraqi Natural Pozzolans (AANP) could produce geopolymer cementation building materials and make them ecologically acceptable. The primary advantage of geopolymer cement is that it has a lower environmental effect that contributes to it. The engineering characteristics of geopolymer concrete produced using activated Iraqi natural Pozzolan are summarized in this research. The mechanical properties, modulus of elasticity, and ultrasonic pulse velocity of various concrete mixes were determined via experimental study. The impact of essential variables like w

Background: Polymer surfaces usually present problems in bonding and finishing due to their low hydrophilicity. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of plasma treatment with the use of two types of gases (oxygen and argon) on surface roughness, and chemical surface properties of acrylic resin denture base polymer material. Materials and Methods: Three heat cured acrylic resin specimens of (2*8*30 mm) dimensions were prepared for each test carried out in this study. Two tests were conducted, surface roughness test and chemical surface analysis test. Results: Application of plasma treatment increased surface roughness for both oxygen and argon plasma treated acrylic resin specimen groups compared with control untreated group,

The effects of root exudates of two sunflower cultivars (Shumoose and Sin
Altheeb) were studied on companion weeds during the growing season of 2012.
Results showed the ability of both cultivars to affect weed population and growth
with the superiority of cultivar Shumoose in suppression of weed density at 60 and
120 days after sowing compared to Sin Altheeb. Weed biomass was significantly
reduced up to 90 and 71% by Shumoose and Sin Altheeb cultivars, respectively.
Stair case experiment indicated that root exudates of Shumoose cultivar showed
more suppression to weeds than Sin Altheeb giving additional evidence for the
superiority of Shumoose cultivar in its allelopathic weed suppression. Chemical
analysis by

The dielectric constant of most polymers is very low; the addition of TiO2 particles into the polymers provides an attractive and promising way to reach a high dielectric constant. Polymer-based materials with a high dielectric constant show great potential for energy storage applications. Four samples were prepared, one of them was polyurethane (PU) and the other were PU with different weight percent (wt %) of TiO2 (0.1, 0.2, 0.3) powder AFM test was used to distinguish the nanoparticles. The result shows that the most shape of these nanoparticles are spherical and the roughness average is 0.798 nm. The dielectric properties were measured for all samples before and after the exposure to the UV radiation. The result illustrates that the

The electrochemical behavior of Al-17%Si alloy is investigated in 3.5wt% NaCl solution. Many alloys with addition of the different wt% magnesium metal of  1wt%, 2%, 3wt% ,4.5wt% ,and 9wt% were prepared by gravity die casting . The microstructures of prepared alloys were examined by optical and SEM microscopes. Corrosion behavior was investigated by using potentiostat instrument under static potentials test and corrosion current was recorded to determine corrosion resistance of all prepared samples. It was found that the addition of Mg metal improves the corrosion resistance of Al-17%Si alloy in 3.5%NaCl solution. The alloy containing 1%Mg shows less corrosion rate than the others while the alloys containing 4.5%Mg, 9%Mg content have

Expansive soils are recognized by their swelling potential upon wetting due to the existence of some clay minerals such as  montmorillonite. An effective solution was found to avoid the danger of such soils by using piles. A single pile embedded in an elasto-plastic expansive soil has been analyzed by using one of the available software which is ABAQUS to investigate the effect of applied loads on pile’s top and investigate the effect of swelling soils on load carrying capacity of the pile. The result shows that as the pile is axially loaded at its top, the axial force along the pile gradually changes from (tension) to (compression) and the pile tends to move downward. The applied load needed to initiate pile’s settlement depend

CdO films were deposited on substrates from glass, Silicon and Porous silicon by thermal chemical spray pyrolysis technique with different thicknesses (130 and 438.46) nm. Measurements of X-ray diffraction of CdO thin film proved that the structure of the Polycrystalline is cubic lattice, and its crystallite size is located within nano scale range where the perfect orientation is (200). The results show that the surface’s roughness and the root mean square increased with increasing the thickness of prepared films. The UV-Visible measurements show that the CdO films with different thicknesses possess an allowed direct transition with band gap (4) eV. AFM measurement revealed that the silicon porosity located in nano range. Cadmium oxide f