Most of the recent works related to the construction industry in Iraq are focused on investigating the validity of local raw materials as alternatives to the imported materials necessary for some practical applications, especially in thermal and sound insulation. This investigation includes the use of limestone dust as partial substitution of cement in combination with foam agent and silica fume to produce sustainable Lightweight Foam Concrete (LWFC). This study consists of two stages. In the first stage, trial mixes were performed to find the optimum dosage of foam agent. Limestone dust was used as a partial replacement for cement. Chemical analysis and fineness showed great similarity with cement. Many concrete mixes were prepared with the content of lime dust powder being 10%, 14%, and 18% as partial replacement of cement by weight. The results indicate that the compressive strength at 7, 28, and 90 days of age was increased for specimens with 14% limestone dust. The best results in compressive strength show an increase at 7 days and a decrease at 28 and 90 days for concrete specimens with 14% limestone dust. In addition, the results show a decrease in dry density for concrete containing 14% lime dust. In the second stage, different percentages of Polypropylene Fibers were added to the concrete, all mixes, containing a constant content of limestone dust of 14% by weight of cement, were modified using different percentages of Polypropylene Fibers (1%, 1.5 %, and 2% by volume) and the best percentage was found to be 1%. The addition of Polypropylene Fibers enhances splitting tensile and flexural strength at 28 days by 14.55% and 55% respectively.
A long-span Prestressed Concrete Hunched Beam with Multi-Quadrilateral Opening has been developed as an alternative to steel structural elements. An experimental program was created and evaluated utilizing a single mid-span monotonic static load on simply supported beams, which included six beams with openings and the solid control beam without openings, to investigate the performance of such beams. The number and height of the quadrilateral openings are the variables to consider. According to test results, the presence of openings in the prestressed concrete hunched beam with multi-quadrilateral opening did not considerably affect their ultimate load capacity with respect to a contro
Test results of six half-scale reinforced concrete flat plates connections with an opening in the vicinity of the column are reported. The test specimens represent a portion of a slab bounded by the lines of contraflexure around the column. The tests were designed to study the effect of openings on the punching shear behavior of the slab-column connections. The test parameters were the location and the size of the openings. One specimen had no opening and the remaining five had various arrangements of openings around the column. All specimens were cast with normal density concrete of approximately 30 MPa compressive strength. The openings in the specimens were square, with the sides parallel to the sides of the column. Three sizes of ope
... Show MoreGeographic information system (GIS) is utilized in a variety of tasks such as, resource management, urban planning, emergency planning in case of accident, and rapid response etc. The aim of this study is to produce a digital map with the aid of GIS and a survey data. A survey data is conducted with Total Station technique on sanitary planning positions. The campus of Baghdad University is chosen to test the execution and accuracy of the results for sewer manholes locations. During the field survey, Total Station (Nikon Nivo) is used to identify the 3-D coordinates for each location. Finally, Geographical Information System (GIS) are utilized to present the digital map of the network sewer pipe line to the end users. Although Geographic Inf
... Show MoreIn this research, the effect of adding two different types of reinforcing particles was investigated, which included: nano-zirconia (nano-ZrO2) particles and micro-lignin particles that were added with different volume fractions of 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2% on the mechanical properties of polymer composite materials. They were prepared in this research, as a complete prosthesis and partial denture base materials was prepared, by using cold cure poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) resin matrix. The composite specimens in this research consist of two groups according to the types of reinforced particles, were prepared by using casting methods, type (Hand Lay-Up) method. The first group consists of PMMA resin reinforced by (nano-ZrO
... Show MoreOilwell cementing operations are crucial for drilling and completion, preserving the well's productive life. However, weak and permeable formations pose a high risk of cement slurry loss, leading to failure. Lightweight cement, like foamed cement, is used to avoid these difficulties. This study is focused on creating a range of foamed slurry densities and examining the effect of gas concentration on their rheological properties. The foaming agent and foam stabilizer are tested, and the optimal concentration is determined to be 2% and 0.12%, respectively, by the weight of the cement.
Furthermore, the construction of samples of foam cement with different densities (0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6) g/cc is performed to f
... Show MoreThe prostheses sockets use normally composite materials which means that their applications may be related with the human body. Therefore, it was very necessary to improve the mechanical properties of these materials. The prosthetic sockets are subjected to varying stresses in gait cycle scenario which may cause a fatigue damage. Therefore, it is necessary or this work to modify the fatigue behavior of the materials used for manufacturing the prostheses sockets. In this work, different Nano particle materials are used to modify the mechanical properties of the composite materials, and increase the fatigue strength. By using an experimental technique, the effect of using different volu
Standardized uptake values, often known as SUVs, are frequently utilized in the process of measuring 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake in malignancies . In this work, we investigated the relationships between a wide range of parameters and the standardized uptake values (SUV) found in the liver. Examinations with 18F-FDG PET/CT were performed on a total of 59 patients who were suffering from liver cancer. We determined the SUV in the liver of patients who had a normal BMI (between 18.5 and 24.9) and a high BMI (above 30) obese. After adjusting each SUV based on the results of the body mass index (BMI) and body surface area (BSA) calculations, which were determined for each patient based on their height and weight. Under a variety of dif
... Show MoreA three-stage learning algorithm for deep multilayer perceptron (DMLP) with effective weight initialisation based on sparse auto-encoder is proposed in this paper, which aims to overcome difficulties in training deep neural networks with limited training data in high-dimensional feature space. At the first stage, unsupervised learning is adopted using sparse auto-encoder to obtain the initial weights of the feature extraction layers of the DMLP. At the second stage, error back-propagation is used to train the DMLP by fixing the weights obtained at the first stage for its feature extraction layers. At the third stage, all the weights of the DMLP obtained at the second stage are refined by error back-propagation. Network structures an
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