Electrospinning is a novel technique that can be used to produce highly porous fibers with highly tunable properties. In this research, this technique is adopted to prepare the electrospun nanofiber membrane for membrane distillation application. A custom-built electrospinning setup was made to prepare the nanofibers membrane. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer was used in the electrospinning process due to its high hydrophobicity. Electrospun (PVDF) nanofibers were tested in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process using 0.6 M sodium chloride as a feed solution. The resulting nanofiber membrane exhibited high performance in DCMD (i.e. relatively high water flux and high salt rejection). It has been found that the prepared membrane has a uniform and fibrous structure as indicated by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Relatively thin fibers with a diameter of 250 nm were produced during the Electrospinning process.
Abstract Background: This study is aimed to assess the maxillary incisors’ root position, angulation, and buccal alveolar bone thickness in both genders and different classes of malocclusion using cone‑beam computed tomography (CBCT). Materials and Methods: Two hundred and six CBCT images were gathered and analyzed by three‑dimensional On‑Demand software to measure the variables of 803 maxillary central and lateral incisors. Genders and class difference was determined by unpaired t‑test, one‑way ANOVA, and Chi‑square tests. Results: Buccal root position of the maxillary incisors accounted for in the majority of the cases followed by the middle and palatal positions. The thickness of alveolar bone appears to have nearly the sam
... Show MoreIn this study, a genetic algorithm (GA) is used to detect damage in curved beam model, stiffness as well as mass matrices of the curved beam elements is formulated using Hamilton's principle. Each node of the curved beam element possesses seven degrees of freedom including the warping degree of freedom. The curved beam element had been derived based on the Kang and Yoo’s thin-walled curved beam theory. The identification of damage is formulated as an optimization problem, binary and continuous genetic algorithms
(BGA, CGA) are used to detect and locate the damage using two objective functions (change in natural frequencies, Modal Assurance Criterion MAC). The results show the objective function based on change in natural frequency i
This 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 MoreIn recent years, the search for economic and environmentally friendly alternatives has become a global necessity to achieve sustainability and preserve raw materials. From this concept, natural bitumen (NB) derived from sulphur springs is now one of the most promising alternative energy resources for many applications, especially in asphalt pavement construction. Its low price and abundance characterise NB since sulphur springs produce thousands of tonnes of NB annually and are used in very limited fields. Two main objectives were adopted for this work. The first objective is to examine the virgin NB properties from five sulphur springs and compare them with petroleum asphalt. The second objective is to enhance NB properties by appl
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The nuclear structure of 28-40Si isotopes toward neutron dripline has been investigated in framework of shell model with Skyrme-Hrtree-Fock method using certain Skyrme parameterizations. Moreover, investigations of static properties such as nuclear densities for proton, neutron, mass, and, charge densities with their corresponding rms radii, neutron skin thicknesses, binding energies, separation energies, shell gap, and pairing gap have been performed using the most recent Skyrme parameterization. The calculated results have been compared with available experimental data to identify which of these parameterizations introduced equivalent results with the ex
... Show MoreA dynamic analysis method has been developed to investigate and characterize embedded delamination on the dynamic response of composite laminated structures. A nonlinear finite element model for geometrically large amplitude free vibration intact plate and delamination plate analysis is presented using higher order shear deformation theory where the nonlinearity was introduced in the Green-Lagrange sense. The governing equation of the vibrated plate were derived using the Variational approach. The effect of different orthotropicity ratio, boundary condition and delamination size on the non-dimenational fundamental frequency and frequency ratios of plate for different stacking sequences are studied. Finally th
... Show MoreSupport vector machines (SVMs) are supervised learning models that analyze data for classification or regression. For classification, SVM is widely used by selecting an optimal hyperplane that separates two classes. SVM has very good accuracy and extremally robust comparing with some other classification methods such as logistics linear regression, random forest, k-nearest neighbor and naïve model. However, working with large datasets can cause many problems such as time-consuming and inefficient results. In this paper, the SVM has been modified by using a stochastic Gradient descent process. The modified method, stochastic gradient descent SVM (SGD-SVM), checked by using two simulation datasets. Since the classification of different ca
... Show MoreThe assessment of a river water’ quality is an essential procedure of monitor programs and isused to collect basic environmental data. The management of integrated water resources in asustainable method is also necessary to allow future generations to meet their water needs. Themain objective of this research is to assess the effect of the Diyala River on Tigris River waterquality using Geographic Information System (GIS) technique. Water samples have beencollected monthly from November 2017 to April 2018 from four selected locations in Tigris andDiyala Rivers using the grab sampling method. Fourteen parameters were studied which areTurbidity, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Biological Oxygen Demand, Electrical Conductivity, TotalDissolved Solids,
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