Geotechnical engineers have always been concerned with the stabilization of slopes. For this purpose,
various methods such as retaining walls, piles, and geosynthetics may be used to increase the safety factor of slopes prone to failure. The application of stone columns may also be another potential alternative for slope stabilization. Such columns have normally been used for cohesive soil improvement. Most slope analysis and design is based on deterministic approach i.e a set of single valued design parameter are adopted and a set of single valued factor of safety (FOS) is determined. Usually the FOS is selected in view of the understanding and knowledge of the material parameters, the problem geometry, the method of analysis and the consequences of failure. This results in different FOS obtained by different designers. This inherent variability characteristic dictates that slope stability problem is a probabilistic problem rather than deterministic problem. Furthermore, the FOS approach cannot quantify the probability of failure or level of risk associated with a particular design situation. The objective of this study is to integrate probabilistic approach as a rational means to incorporate uncertainty in the slope stability analysis. The study was made through a hypothetical problem which includes a sensitivity analysis. The methodology is based on Monte Carlo simulation integrated in commercially available computer program SLOPE/W. The output of the analysis is presented as the probability of failure as a measure of the likelihood of the slope failure. Results of this study have verified that the probability of failure is a better measure of slope stability as compared to the factor of safety because it provides a range of value rather than a single value.
Background: Dental stone casts come into contact with impression materials and becomes susceptible to cross contamination from saliva and blood. This study was done to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of dental stone type IV after treatments with various disinfecting agents and regimes (methods). Materials and Methods: Type IV dental stone and different types of disinfecting agents were used and divided into seven groups: G1: dental stone without disinfection (control group), G2: dental stone mixed with silver nitrate powder 0.5% , G3: dental stone mixed with silver nitrate powder 1%, G4: dental stone mixed with copper sulfate powder 0.5%, G5: dental stone mixed with copper sulfate powder 1% ,G6: dental stone immersed in prop
... Show MoreIraq is located near the northern tip of the Arabian plate, which is advancing northwards relative to the Eurasian plate, and is predictably, a tectonically active country. Seismic activity in Iraq increased significantly during the last decade. So structural and geotechnical engineers have been giving increasing attention to the design of buildings for earthquake resistance. Dynamic properties play a vital role in the design of structures subjected to seismic load. The main objective of this study is to prepare a data base for the dynamic properties of different soils in seismic active zones in Iraq using the results of cross hole and down hole tests. From the data base collected it has been observed that the average ve
... Show MoreIn this paper, a dynamic investigation is done for strip, rectangular and square machine foundation at the top surface of two-layer dry sand with various states (i.e., loose on medium sand and dense on medium sand). The dynamic investigation is performed numerically using finite element programming, PLAXIS 3D. The soil is expected as a versatile totally plastic material that complies with the Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion. A harmonic load is applied at the base with an amplitude of 6 kPa at a frequency of (2 and 6) Hz, and seismic is applied with acceleration – time input of earthquake hit Halabjah city north of Iraq. A parametric study is done to evaluate the influence of changing L/B ratio (Length=12,6,3 m and width=3 m), type of sand
... Show MoreIn this study, derivatives of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) grafted with phthalic anhydride (PhA) and dyes were prepared to produce polymeric materials of PVA-g-PhA, PVA-g-PhA-anthocyanin, PVA-g-PhA-bromophenol blue, and PVA-g-PhAthymol blue. The materials were characterised by FTIR and 1 H NMR spectroscopies. The crystallinity of the polymers was evaluated with powder X-ray difraction, and the thermal stability by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The synthetic procedure for the polymeric materials entailed the formation of esters. The FTIR spectra of the polymers confrmed their formation since the ester carbonyl group stretch was observed at approximately 1691–1716 cm−1 in each material. NMR spectroscopy confrmed the addition of t
... Show MoreThis paper has investigated experimentally the dynamic buckling behavior of AISI 303 stainless steel Aluminized and as received long columns. These columns, hot-dip aluminized and as received, are tested under dynamic buckling, 22 specimens, without aluminizing (type 1), and 50 specimens, with hot-dip aluminizing at different aluminizing conditions of dipping temperature and dipping time (type 2), are tested under dynamic compression loading and under dynamic combined loading (compression and bending) by using a rotating buckling test machine. The experimental results are compared with Perry Robertson interaction formula that used for long columns. Greenhill formula is used to get a mathematical model that descripts the buckling behavior
... Show MoreCarbon dioxide (CO2) flooding is an EOR technique in which carbon dioxide is injected into the reservoir to improve the oil recovery. The reservoir oil and rock properties are altered when carbon dioxide interacts with the oil and rock present in the reservoir. Carbon dioxide injection alters the oil and rock properties by causing reduction in oil viscosity, oil swelling and wettability alteration of the rock. This paper will present a proposal to study the wettability alteration in carbonate formations during miscible carbon dioxide flooding. In miscible carbon dioxide flooding, the injection pressure of carbon dioxide would be kept above the minimum miscibility pressure. Thus carbon dioxide is miscible with the oil present in the reservoi
... Show MoreWastewater treatment plants operators prefer to make adjustments because they are more cost effective, to use the existing tank instead of building new ones. In this case an imported materials would be used as bio-loads to increase biomass and thus maintain efficiency as the next organic loading increases.In the present study, a local substance "pumice stone" was used as a biological carrier in the aeration tank, and the experiments were carried out in five stages: without biological carriers, filling ratio of 4%,10%,20%, and25% with pumice stone, the maximum organic loading at each stage (1.1884, 1.2144, 1.9432, 2.7768, 3.3141)g BOD /l.d respectively.Other experiments were carried out to determine the best filling ratio, the SS remova
... Show MoreBy definition, the detection of protein complexes that form protein-protein interaction networks (PPINs) is an NP-hard problem. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs), as global search methods, are proven in the literature to be more successful than greedy methods in detecting protein complexes. However, the design of most of these EA-based approaches relies on the topological information of the proteins in the PPIN. Biological information, as a key resource for molecular profiles, on the other hand, acquired a little interest in the design of the components in these EA-based methods. The main aim of this paper is to redesign two operators in the EA based on the functional domain rather than the graph topological domain. The perturb
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