This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From experimental observations, when the girder specimen was cracked and the transverse steel reinforcement bars started straining, the CFRP strips started to work more effectively and contributed together with the transverse steel reinforcement to resist torsion load. Additionally, Finite Element (FE) simulations were developed using Abaqus to model the torsional behavior of the retrofitted girders, the results of which were validated with the experimental data. With the numerical model, the effect of concrete compressive strength, transverse reinforcement spacing, and CFRP strip spacing were examined. The effectiveness of the CFRP strips in enhancing the torsional strength of the girder was found to increase with increasing the spacing between the transverse reinforcement.
novel spectrofluorimetric flow injection analysis (FIA) method was developed for the selective quantification of ascorbic acid via fluorescence quenching of serotonin hydrochloride. The system employs a custom-designed photometric array comprising 16 irradiation sources arranged in a dual-axis matrix—eight aligned horizontally and eight orthogonally, enabling multi-angle excitation and enhanced spectral resolution. Fluorescence signals were captured using a twin-pair solar cell detector, offering high sensitivity and minimal optical interference. The method exhibited a linear calibration range of 0.1–30 limit of detection (LOD) of 0.025 μ μ g/mL with a correlation coefficient (r mol /L, equivalent to 4.403 * 10 4 μ 2 ) of 0.9966, a g
... Show MoreA simple, environmental friendly and selective sample preparation technique employing porous membrane protected micro-solid phase extraction (μ-SPE) loaded with molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for the determination of ochratoxin A (OTA) is described. After the extraction, the analyte was desorbed using ultrasonication and was analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography. Under the optimized conditions, the detection limits of OTA for coffee, grape juice and urine were 0.06 ng g−1, 0.02 and 0.02 ng mL−1, respectively while the quantification limits were 0.19 ng g−1, 0.06 and 0.08 ng mL−1, respectively. The recoveries of OTA from coffee spiked at 1, 25 and 50 ng g−1, grape juice and urine samples at 1, 25 and 50 ng mL
... Show MoreThe effect of irradiation and exposure time of laser light on the fluorescence emission of DCM dye in PMMA polymer contained in the composition mold using different metals have been investigated. It was found that the fluorescence intensity decreases as the exposure time increases and then reaches stabilization at long times. The effect of the incident laser power on fluorescence intensity of DCM dye in PMMA polymer at 10-3 M and 20% mixing ratio, using copper disks of composition molds, has been studied too. It was observed that there is an upward knick in the curve at laser intensity of 19.2 W/cm2, which may be associated with the threshold for amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) or laser action. And at intensity higher than about 88.
... Show MoreThe aims of this study are to measure the defect rate and analyze the problems of production of ready concrete mixture plant by using Six Sigma methodology which is a business strategy for operations improvement depending basically on the application of its sub-methodology DMAIC improvement cycle and the basic statistical tools where the process sigma level of concrete production in the case study was 2.41 σ.
This paper comprises the design and operation of mono-static backscatter lidar station based on a pulsed Nd: YAG laser that operates at multiple wavelengths. The three-color lidar laser transmitter is based on the collinear fundamental 1064 nm, second harmonic 532 nm and a third harmonic 355nm output of a Nd:YAG laser. The most important parameter of lidar especially daytime operations is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) which gives some instructions in designing of lidar and it is often limit the effective range. The reason is that noises or interferences always badly affect the measured results. The inversion algorithms have been developed for the study of atmospheric aerosols. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of three-color channel re
... Show MoreIn this study, a novel application of lab-scale dual chambered air-cathode microbial fuel cell (MFC) has been developed for simultaneous bio-treatment of real pharmaceutical wastewater and renewable electricity generation. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) was provided with zeolite-packed anodic compartment and a cation exchange membrane (CEM) to separate the anode and cathode. The performance of the proposed MFC was evaluated in terms of COD removal and power generation based on the activity of the bacterial consortium in the biofilm mobilized on zeolite bearer. The MFC was fueled with real pharmaceutical wastewater having an initial COD concentration equal to 800 mg/L and inoculated with anaerobic aged sludge. Results demo
... Show MoreOptoelectronic devices, widely used in high energy and nuclear physics applications, suffer severe radiation damage that leads to degradations in its efficiency. In this paper, the influence of gamma radiation (137Ce source) and beta radiation (90Sr source) on the photoelectric parameters of the Si solar cell, based on the I–V characterization at different irradiation exposer, has been studied. The penetrating radiation produces defects in the base material, may be activated during its lifetime, becoming traps for electron–hole pairs produced optically and, this will, decrease the efficiency of the solar cell. The main objective of the paper is to study and measure changes in the I–V characteristics of solar cells, such as efficienc
... Show MoreAb – initio restricted Hartree - Fock method within the framework of large unit cell (LUC) formalism is used to investigate the electronic structure of Si and Ge nanocrystals. The surface and core properties are investigated. A large unit cell of 8 atoms is used in the present analysis. Cohesive energy, energy gap, conduction and valence band widths are obtained from the electronic structure calculations. The results are compared with available experimental data and theoretical results of other investigators. The calculated lattice constant is found to be slightly larger than the corresponding experimental value because we use only 8 atoms and we compared the results with that of the bulk crystals, nanoclusters are expected to have str
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