Straight tendons in pretensioned members can cause high-tensile stresses in the concrete extreme fibers at end sections because of the absence of the bending stresses due to self-weight and superimposed loads and the dominance of the moment due to prestressing force alone. Accordingly, the concrete tensile stresses at the ends of a member prestressed with straight tendons may limit the service load capacity of the member. It is therefore important to establish limiting zone in the concrete section within which the prestressing force can be applied without causing tension in the extreme concrete fibers. Two practical methods are available to reduce the stresses at the end sections due to the prestressing force. The first method based on changing the eccentricity of some tendons by raising them towards the end zone. The second method is based on bond prevention by encasing some of the tendons in plastic sheathing, effectively moving the point of application of prestressing force inward toward midspan for part of tendons. The present study focuses on a proposed third method to reduce the effect of the prestressing force near end supports by using straight strands with limited initial prestressing value in compression zone. New equations were suggested for the cracking moment and the prestressing force which consider the prestressed tendons in compression zone.
To find out the impact of maternal risk factors on the outcome of pregnancy in Baghdad city. A descriptive purposive study was carried out on 100 postpartum women who had delivered for 1 hr. to 24 hrs. ago . the study sample was selected from three hospitals in Baghdad city ( Baghdad teaching hospital ,Fatima Al-Zahra'a maternity and pediatric teaching hospital and Al-Yarmook teaching hospital),during the period from 25 Jan. to 25 Feb. 2006. The data were collected through the use of questionnaire format reviewing pregnants' records and personal interview and were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistical approaches. The finding revealed that maternal pregnancy complications had weak effects on pregnancy outcome , while mate
... Show MoreThis research is carried out to investigate the behavior of self-compacting concrete (SCC) two-way slabs with central square opening under uniformly distributed loads. The experimental part of this research is based on casting and testing six SCC simply supported square slabs having the same dimentions and reinforcement. One of these slabs was cast without opening as a control slab. While, the other five slabs having opening ratios (OR) of 2.78%, 6.25%, 11.11%, 17.36% and 25.00%. From the experimental results it is found that the maximum percentage decrease in cracking and ultimate uniform loads were 31.82% and 12.17% compared to control slab for opening ratios (OR
... Show MoreIn this research, the structural behavior of reinforced concrete columns made of normal and hybrid reactive powder concrete (hybrid by steel and polypropylene fibers) subjected to chloride salts with concentration was 8341.6 mg/l. The study consists of two parts, the first one is experimental study and the second one is theoretical analysis. Three main variables were adopted in the experimental program; concrete type, curing type and loading arrangement. Twenty (120x120x1200) mm columns were cast and tested depending on these variables. The samples were reinforced using two different bars; Ø8 for ties and Ø12 with minimum longitudinal reinforcement (0.01Ag). The specimens were divided into two main groups based o
... Show MoreThe efforts embedded in this paper have been devoted to designing, preparing, and testing warm mix asphalt (WMA) mixtures and comparing their behavior against traditional hot mix asphalt mixtures. For WMA preparation, the Sasobit wax additive has been added to a 40/50 asphalt binder with a concentration of 3%. An experimental evaluation has been performed by conducting the Marshall together with volumetric properties, indirect tensile strength, and wheel tracking tests to acquire the tensile strength ratio (TSR), retained stability index (RSI), and rut depth. It was found that the gained benefit of reduction in mixing and compaction temperatures was reversely associated with a noticeable decline in Marshall properties and moisture s
... Show MoreThis study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel concrete-encased column (CE) using small circular steel tubes filled with cementitious grouting material (GFST) as the primary reinforcement instead of traditional steel bars. The research involved three different types of reinforcement: conventional steel bars, concrete-filled steel tubes with 30% of the reinforcement ratio of steel bars, and concrete-filled steel tubes with the same reinforcement ratio as steel bars. Twenty-four circular concrete columns were tested and categorized into six groups based on the type of reinforcement employed. Each group comprised four columns, with one subjected to concentric axial load, two subjected to eccentric axial load (with eccentrici
... Show MoreReliability analysis methods are used to evaluate the safety of reinforced concrete structures by evaluating the limit state function 𝑔(𝑋𝑖). For implicit limit state function and nonlinear analysis , an advanced reliability analysis methods are needed. Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) can be used in this case however, as the number of input variables increases, the time required for MCS also increases, making it a time consuming method especially for complex problems with implicit performance functions. In such cases, MCS-based FORM (First Order Reliability Method) and Artificial Neural Network-based FORM (ANN FORM) have been proposed as alternatives. However, it is important to note that both MCS-FORM and ANN-FORM can also be time-con
... Show MoreIn this paper, the characteristics of microstrip monopole antennas are studied firstly in free space. Secondly, the effects of the human body on the studied antenna's performance are investigated for wearable communications. Different patch shapes of microstrip monopole antenna are chosen to operate at two bands: industrial scientific and medical band (ISM) and ultra-wideband (UWB) for wearable applications. The studied antenna consists of a radiating element on one side of the substrate and a partial ground plane on the other side. The antenna is supposed to fabricate on cloth fabric whose relative dielectric constant is Ɛr =1.7. At the same time, the pure copper could be used as the conducting part representing both t
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