Highly plastic soils exhibit unfavorited properties upon saturation, which produce different defects in engineering structures. Attempts were made by researchers to proffer solutions to these defects by experimenting in practical ways. This included various materials that could possibly improve the soil engineering properties and reduce environmental hazards. This paper investigates the strength behavior of highly plastic clay stabilized with brick dust. The brick dust contents were 10%, 20%, and 30% by dry weight of soil. A series of linear shrinkage and unconfined compression tests were carried out to study the effect of brick dust on the quantitative amount of shrinkage experienced by highly plastic clay and the undrained shear strength. The effect of curing on soil shear strength was included in this paper. It was found that the critical behavior of highly plastic soil can be mitigated by mixing with 20% or 30% of brick dust. The undrained shear strength of highly plastic clay mixed with brick dust increased with the increase of brick dust content up to 20%. It was affected by the curing period. The best improvement was achieved when the optimum content of brick dust was 20%. Finally, seven days of curing improved the undrained shear strength with over 100%.
This work aims to fabricate two types of plasmonic nanostructures by electrical exploding wire (EEW) technique and study the effects of the different morphologies of these nanostructures on the absorption spectra and Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) activities, using Rhodamine 6G as a probe molecule. The structural properties of these nanostructures were examined using X-Ray diffraction (XRD). The morphological properties were examined using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). The absorption spectra of the mixed R6G laser dye (concentration 1×10-6 M) with prepared nanostructures were examined by double beam UV-Vis Spectrophotometer. The Raman spe
... Show MoreAn electrocoagulation process has been used to eliminate the chemical oxygen demand (COD) from wastewaters discharged from the Al-Muthanna petroleum refinery plant. In this process, a circular aluminum bar was used as a sacrificial anode, and hallow cylinder made from stainless steel was used as a cathode in a tubular batch electrochemical Reactor. Impacts of the operating factors like current density (5-25mAcm-2), NaCl addition at concentrations (0-2g/l), and pH at values (3-11) on the COD removal efficiency were studied.
Results revealed that the increase in current density increases the COD removal efficiency, whereas an increase
A comparison between the resistance capacity of a single pile excited by two opposite rotary machines embedded in dry and saturated sandy soil was considered experimentally. A small-scale physical model was manufactured to accomplish the experimental work in the laboratory. The physical model consists of: two small motors supplied with eccentric mass 0·012 kg and eccentric distance 20 mm representing the two opposite rotary machines, an aluminum shaft with 20 mm in diameter as the pile, and a steel plate with dimensions of (160 × 160 × 20 mm) as a pile cap. The experimental work was achieved taking the following parameters into consideration, pile embedment depth ratio (L/d; length to diameter) and operating freq
... Show MoreIn the present study, the effectiveness of a procedure of electrocoagulation for removing chemical oxygen demand (COD) from the wastewater of petroleum refinery has been evaluated. Aluminum and stainless steel electrodes were used as a sacrificial anode and cathode respectively. The effect of current density (4-20mAcm−2), pH (3-11), and NaCl concentration (0-4g/l) on efficiency of removal of chemical oxygen demand was investigated. The results have shown that increasing of current density led to increase the efficiency of COD removal while increasing NaCl concentration resulted in decreasing of COD removal efficiency. Effect of pH was found to be lowering COD re
The creation and characterization of laser-generated plasma are affected by laser irradiance, representing significant phenomena in many applications. The present work studied the spectroscopy diagnostic of laser irradiance effect on Zn plasma features created in the air by a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser at the fundamental wavelength (1064nm). The major plasma parameters (electron temperature and electron density) have been measured using the Boltzmann plot and the Stark broadening methods. The value of electrons temperature ranged from 6138–6067 K, and the electron density in the range of 1.4×1018 to 2×1018 cm-3, for laser irradiance range from 2.1 to 4.8×108 (W/cm2
... Show MoreIn this paper, Al and Cu Plasmas that produced by pulsed Nd:YAG laser with fundamental wave length with a pulse duration of 6 nS focused onto Al and Cu targets in atmospheric air are investigated spectroscopically. The influence of pulse laser energy on the some Al and Cu plasmas characteristics was diagnosed by using optical emission spectroscopy for the wavelength range 320-740 nm. The results observed that the increase of pulse laser energy causes to increase all plasma characteristics of both plasmas under study and shown increasing of the emission line intensity. The appearance of the atomic and ionic emission lines of an element in the emission spectrum depends on the ionization energy of target atoms. The plasma characteristics ar
... Show MoreIn this research, the electrical characteristics of glow discharge plasma were studied. Glow discharge plasma generated in a home-made DC magnetron sputtering system, and a DC-power supply of high voltage as input to the discharge electrodes were both utilized. The distance between two electrodes is 4cm. The gas used to produce plasma is argon gas which flows inside the chamber at a rate of 40 sccm. The influence of work function for different target materials (gold, copper, and silver), - 5cm in diameter and around 1mm thickness - different working pressures, and different applied voltages on electrical characteristics (discharge current, discharge potential, and Paschen’s curve) were studied. The results showed that the discharge cur
... Show MoreA comparative study was done on the adsorption of methyl orange dye (MO) using non-activated and activated corn leaves with hydrochloric acid as an adsorbent material. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were utilized to specify the properties of adsorbent material. The effect of several variables (pH, initial dye concentration, temperature, amount of adsorbent and contact time) on the removal efficiency was studied and the results indicated that the adsorption efficiency increases with the increase in the concentration of dye, adsorbent dosage and contact time, while inversely proportional to the increase in pH and temperature for both the treated and untreated corn leav
... Show MoreWater pollution as a result of contamination with dye-contaminating effluents is a severe issue for water reservoirs, which instigated the study of biodegradation of Reactive Red 195 and Reactive Blue dyes by E. coli and Bacillus sp. The effects of occupation time, solution pH, initial dyes concentrations, biomass loading, and temperature were investigated via batch-system experiments by using the Design of Experiment (DOE) for 2 levels and 5 factors response surface methodology (RSM). The operational conditions used for these factors were optimized using quadratic techniques by reducing the number of experiments. The results revealed that the two types of bacteria had a powerful effect on biodegradable dyes. The regression analysis reveale
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