In this research, experimental and numerical studies were carried out to investigate the performance of encased glass-fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) beams under fire. The test specimens were divided into two peer groups to be tested under the effect of ambient and elevated temperatures. The first group was statically tested to investigate the monotonic behavior of the specimens. The second group was exposed to fire loading first and then statically tested to explore the residual behavior of the burned specimens. Adding shear connectors and web stiffeners to the GFRP beam was the main parameter in this investigation. Moreover, service loads were applied to the tested beams during the fire. Utilizing shear connectors, web stiffeners, and both enhanced the load-carrying capacities of the encased beams by 100.6%, 97.3%, and 130.8%, respectively. Comparisons between the burned and unburned peer beams were presented with losses in the load-carrying capacity of the burned beams. These losses were the highest in the cases of shear connectors and web stiffeners due to the obtained severe damage, which led to more reductions in the residual behavior of the burned beams. Numerical analyses were performed using the general-purpose finite element (FE) ABAQUS package to conduct a parametric study. The investigated parameters included the effect of the exposure duration and the temperature level. The results of the FE analysis showed good agreement with the experimental results. Additional reductions in the residual capacities of the fire-damaged beams were observed due to exposure to longer fire durations. The improvements in the beam capacities due to using shear connectors and web stiffeners relative to the reference beams under the same exposure time decreased as the exposure duration increased. Furthermore, increasing the temperature to 700 °C, 800 °C, 900 °C, and 950 °C caused reductions in the residual capacities by about 25%, 45%, 70%, and 80%, respectively, for the encased beams in comparison to their peers at ambient temperature.
This study aimed to investigate the influence of longitudinal steel embedded tubes located at the center of the column cross-section on the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) columns. The experimental program consisted of 8 testing pin-ended square sectional columns of 150×150 mm, having a total height of 1400 mm, subjected to eccentric load. The considered variables were the steel square tube sizes of 25, 51 and 68 mm side dimensions and the load eccentricity (50 and 150) mm. RC columns were concealed steel tubes with hollow ratios of 3%, 12% and 20% depending on tube sizes used. The experimental results indicated an improvement in the overall behavior of eccentric columns when steel embedded tubes are used. The maximum gain in
... Show MoreIn this paper, an experimental study of the thermal performance for hybrid solar air conditioning system was carried out, to investigate system suitability for the hot climate in Iraq. The system consists of vapor compression unit combined with evacuated tube solar collector and liquid storage tank. A three-way valve was installed after the compressor to control the direction flow of the refrigerant, either to the storage tank or directly to the condenser. The performance parameters were collected by data logger to display and record in the computer by using LabVIEW software. The results show that the average coefficient of performance of hybrid solar air conditioning system (R=1) was about 2.42 to 2.77 and the average p
... Show MoreThe moisture sorption isotherms of Mefenamic acid tablets were investigated by measuring the experimental equilibrium moisture content (EMC) using the static method of saturated salt solutions at three temperatures (25, 35, and 45°C) and water activity range from 0.056 to 0.8434. The results showed that EMC increased when relative humidity increased and the sorption capacity decreased, the tablets became less hygroscopic and more stable when the temperature increased at constant water activity. The sorption curves had a sigmoid shape, type II according to Brunauer’s classification. The hysteresis effect was significant along with the whole sorption process. The results were fitted to three models: Oswin, Smith, and Guggen
... Show MoreIn this paper, an analytical solution describing the deflection of a cracked beam repaired with piezoelectric patch is introduced. The solution is derived using perturbation method. A novel analytical model to calculate the proper dimensions of piezoelectric patches used to repair cracked beams is also introduced. This model shows that the thickness of the piezoelectric patch depends mainly on the thickness of the cracked beam, the electro-mechanical properties of the patch material, the applied load and the crack location. Furthermore, the model shows that the length of the piezoelectric patches depends on the thickness of the patch as well as it depends on the length of the cracked beam and the crack depth. The additio
... Show MoreIn this paper, an analytical solution describing the deflection of a cracked beam repaired with piezoelectric patch is introduced. The solution is derived using perturbation method. A novel analytical model to calculate the proper dimensions of piezoelectric patches used to repair cracked beams is also introduced. This model shows that the thickness of the piezoelectric patch depends mainly on the thickness of the cracked beam, the electro-mechanical properties of the patch material, the applied load and the crack location. Furthermore, the model shows that the length of the piezoelectric patches depends on the thickness of the patch as well as it depends on the length of the cracked beam and the crack depth. The additional flexibil
... Show MoreThe inverse problem is important method in the design of electrostatic lenses which is used in this work, with new technique by suggesting an axial electrostatic potential distribution using polynomial functions of the third order. The paraxial-ray equation is solved to obtain the trajectory of particles that satisfy the suggested potential function.In this work design of immersion electrostatic lens operated under zero magnification condition. The electrode shape of sthe electrostatic lens was the dermined from the solution of laplace equation and plotted in two deimensions . The results showed low values of spherical and chromatic aberrations , which are considered as good criteria for good desigh.
Free Space Optics (FSO) plays a vital role in modern wireless communications due to its advantages over fiber optics and RF techniques where a transmission of huge bandwidth and access to remote places become possible. The specific aim of this research is to analyze the Bit-Error Rate (BER) for FSO communication system when the signal is sent the over medium of turbulence channel, where the fading channel is described by the Gamma-Gamma model. The signal quality is improved by using Optical Space-Time Block- Code (OSTBC) and then the BER will be reduced. Optical 2×2 Alamouti scheme required 14 dB bit energy to noise ratio (Eb/N0) at 10-5 bit error rate (BER) which gives 3.5 dB gain as compared to no diversity scheme. Th
... Show MoreDue to wind wave actions, ships impacts, high-speed vehicles and others resources of loading, structures such as high buildings rise bridge and electric transmission towers undergo significant coupled moment loads. In this study, the effect of increasing the value of coupled moment and increasing the rigidity of raft footing on the horizontal deflection by using 3-D finite element using ABAQUS program. The results showed that the increasing the coupled moment value leads to an increase in lateral deflection and increase in the rotational angle (α◦). The rotational angle increases from (0.014, 0.15 to 0.19) at coupled moment (120 kN.m), (0.29, 0.31 and 0.49) at coupled moment (240 kN.m) and (0.57, 0.63 and 1.03) at cou
... Show MoreThe study is devoted to both static and earthquake response analysis of retaining structures acted upon by lateral earth pressure. Two main approaches were implemented in the analysis, namely, the Mononobe-Okabe analytical method and the numerical Finite element procedure as provided in the ready software ABAQUS with explicit dynamic method. A basic case study considered in the present work is the bridge approach retaining walls as a part of AL-Jadiriya bridge intersection to obtain the effects of the backfill and the ground water on the retaining wall response including displacement of the retaining structure in addition to the behavior of the fill material. Parametric studies were carried out to evaluate the effects of several factors
... Show MoreThis paper presents a novel idea as it investigates the rescue effect of the prey with fluctuation effect for the first time to propose a modified predator-prey model that forms a non-autonomous model. However, the approximation method is utilized to convert the non-autonomous model to an autonomous one by simplifying the mathematical analysis and following the dynamical behaviors. Some theoretical properties of the proposed autonomous model like the boundedness, stability, and Kolmogorov conditions are studied. This paper's analytical results demonstrate that the dynamic behaviors are globally stable and that the rescue effect improves the likelihood of coexistence compared to when there is no rescue impact. Furthermore, numerical simul
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