In this research a theoretical study has been carried out on the behavior and strength of simply supported composite beams strengthened by steel cover plate taking into consideration partial interaction of shear connectors and nonlinear behavior of the materials and shear connectors. Following the procedure that already has been adopted by Johnson (1975), the basic differential equations of equilibrium and compatibility were reduced to single differential equation in terms of interface slip between concrete slab and steel beam. Furthermore, in order to consider the nonlinear behavior of steel, concrete and shear connectors, the basic equation was rearranged so that all terms related to materials are isol

Curing of concrete is the maintenance of a satisfactory moisture content and temperature for a
period of time immediately following placing so the desired properties are developed. Accelerated
curing is advantages where early strength gain in concrete is important. The expose of concrete
specimens to the accelerated curing conditions which permit the specimens to develop a significant
portion of their ultimate strength within a period of time (1-2 days), depends on the method of the
curing cycle.Three accelerated curing test methods are adopted in this study. These are warm water,
autogenous and proposed test methods. The results of this study has shown good correlation
between the accelerated strength especially for

The aim of this paper is to design fast neural networks to approximate periodic functions, that is, design a fully connected networks contains links between all nodes in adjacent layers which can speed up the approximation times, reduce approximation failures, and increase possibility of obtaining the globally optimal approximation. We training suggested network by Levenberg-Marquardt training algorithm then speeding suggested networks by choosing most activation function (transfer function) which having a very fast convergence rate for reasonable size networks.             In all algorithms, the gradient of the performance function (energy function) is used to determine how to

The use of blended cement in concrete provides economic, energy savings, and ecological benefits, and also provides. Improvement in the properties of materials incorporating blended cements. The major aim of this investigation is to develop blended cement technology using grinded local rocks . The research includes information on constituent materials, manufacturing processes and performance characteristics of blended cements made with replacement (10 and 20) % of grinded local rocks (limestone, quartzite and porcelinite) from cement. The main conclusion of this study was that all types of manufactured blended cement conformed to the specification according to ASTM C595-12 (chemical and physical requirements). The percentage of the compress

This paper investigates the experimental response of composite reinforced concrete with GFRP and steel I-sections under limited cycles of repeated load. The practical work included testing four beams. A reference beam, two composite beams with pultruded GFRP I-sections, and a composite beam with a steel I-beam were subjected to repeated loading. The repeated loading test started by loading gradually up to a maximum of 75% of the ultimate static failure load for five loading and unloading cycles. After that, the specimens were reloaded gradually until failure. All test specimens were tested under a three-point load. Experimental results showed that the ductility index increased for the composite beams relative to the reference specim

The objective of this research work is to evaluate the quality of central concrete plant of Al-Rasheed Company by using Six Sigma approach which is a measure of quality that strives for near elimination of defects using the statistical methods to improve outputs that are critical to customers. The fundamental objective of Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction to reach delighting customers, and then suggesting an improvement system to improve the production of concrete in Al-Rasheed State Contracting Construction Company.
A field survey includes two parts (open and close questionnaire) that aimed to get the data and information required f