Two novel demountable shear connectors for precast steel-concrete composite bridges are presented. The connectors use high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the steel beam with the aid of a special locking configuration that prevents slip of bolts within their holes. Moreover, the connectors promote accelerated construction and overcome typical construction tolerances issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connectors allow bridge disassembly, and therefore, can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow, i.e. (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (3) steel beams can be replaced, while precast decks and shear connectors can be reused. A series of push-out tests and a beam test were conducted to assess the behavior of the connectors and quantify the effect of important parameters. The experimental results showed that shear resistance and slip capacity can reach 2.5 and 2.7 times respectively of those of welded shear studs along with superior stiffness and strength against slab uplift. Additionally, shear stiffness of M16 mm LNSC was equal to that of M19 mm welded studs. Identical tests reveal negligible scatter in the shear load – slip displacement behavior. Design equations are proposed to predict the shear resistance with minimum deviations.
Artificial roughness applied to a Solar Air Heater (SAH) absorber plate is a popular technique for increasing its total thermal efficiency (ηt−th). In this paper, the influence of geometrical parameters of V-down ribs attached below the corrugated absorbing plate of a SAH on the ηt−th was examined. The impacts of key roughness parameters, including relative pitch p/e (6–12), relative height e/D (0.019–0.043), angles of attack α (30–75°), and Re (1000–20,000), were examined under real weather conditions. The SAH ηt−th roughened by V-down ribs was predicted using an in-house developed conjugate heat-transfer numerical model. The maximum SAH ηt−th was shown to be 78.8% as predicted under the steady-state condition
... Show MoreThe auditory system can suffer from exposure to loud noise and human health can be affected. Traffic noise is a primary contributor to noise pollution. To measure the noise levels, 3 variables were examined at 25 locations. It was found that the main factors that determine the increase in noise level are traffic volume, vehicle speed, and road functional class. The data have been taken during three different periods per day so that they represent and cover the traffic noise of the city during heavy traffic flow conditions. Analysis of traffic noise prediction was conducted using a simple linear regression model to accurately predict the equivalent continuous sound level. The difference between the predicted and the measured noise shows that
... Show MoreObjective: Breast cancer is regarded as a deadly disease in women causing lots of mortalities. Early diagnosis of breast cancer with appropriate tumor biomarkers may facilitate early treatment of the disease, thus reducing the mortality rate. The purpose of the current study is to improve early diagnosis of breast by proposing a two-stage classification of breast tumor biomarkers fora sample of Iraqi women.
Methods: In this study, a two-stage classification system is proposed and tested with four machine learning classifiers. In the first stage, breast features (demographic, blood and salivary-based attributes) are classified into normal or abnormal cases, while in the second stage the abnormal breast cases are
... Show MoreMobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) is a wireless technology that plays an important role in several modern applications which include military, civil, health and real-time applications. Providing Quality of Service (QoS) for this application with network characterized by node mobility, infrastructure-less, limitation resource is a critical issue and takes greater attention. However, transport protocols effected influential on the performance of MANET application. This study provides an analysis and evaluation of the performance for TFRC, UDP and TCP transport protocols in MANET environment. In order to achieve high accuracy results, the three transport protocols are implemented and simulated with four different network topology which are 5, 10
... Show MoreThe research focuses on determination of best location of high elevated tank using the required head of pump as a measure for this purpose. Five types of network were used to find the effect of the variation in the discharge and the node elevation on the best location. The most weakness point was determined for each network. Preliminary tank locations were chosen for test along the primary pipe with same interval distance. For each location, the water elevation in tank and pump head was calculated at each hour depending on the pump head that required to achieve the minimum pressure at the most weakness point. Then, the sum of pump heads through the day was determined. The results proved that there is a most economical lo
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