There are many aims of this book: The first aim is to develop a model equation that describes the spread of contamination through soils which can be used to determine the rate of environmental contamination by estimate the concentration of heavy metals (HMs) in soil. The developed model equation can be considered as a good representation for a problem of environmental contamination. The second aim of this work is to design two feed forward neural networks (FFNN) as an alternative accurate technique to determine the rate of environmental contamination which can be used to solve the model equation. The first network is to simulate the soil parameters which can be used as input data in the second suggested network, while the second network simulates to estimate the concentration of heavy metals. The third aim is to develop a conceptual theory of training stage of neural networks from the perspective of functional analysis and optimization methods. Within this formulation, learning means to solve a variational problem by minimizing a performance function associated to the neural network. The choice of the objective functional depends on the particular application. On the other side, we suggest modification of the performance function to improve the generalization of the suggested networks and to treat the early stopping and local minima problems. The fourth aim is to compare the performance of aforementioned algorithms with regard to predicting ability. Then applied the suggested technique to estimate the concentration of heavy metals such as: Copper(Cu), Lead(Pb), Cadmium(Cd), Cobalt(Co), Zinc(Zn) and Nickel(Ni) in Baghdad soils. First, sixty four soil samples were selected from a phytoremediated contaminated site located in some zones in Baghdad city (residential, industrial, commercial, agricultural and main roads). Second, a series of measurements were performed on the soil samples and analyzed measuring of concentrations for heavy metals using devices such as : Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS), X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP- MS) to get initial concentrations for those heavy metals. Third, simulate and train the suggested networks to get the concentration of heavy metals. The performance of the suggested networks was compared with the traditional laboratory inspecting using the training and test data sets. The results of this book show that the suggested networks trained on experimental measurements can be successfully applied to the rapid and accuracy estimation of concentration of heavy metals. Finally, we suggest some methods for the treatment of contaminated soil by using some herbal plants
Gypseous soils represented one of the most complex salty soils that faced the geotechnical engineers. Structures that built on gypsum soil will undergo unexpected distortions that will eventually contribute to catastrophic failure. The purpose of this article is to understand the durability of gypsum soil against wetting drying cycles after improvement with polyurethane polymer especially investigate the effect of the wetting-drying cycle on collapsibility. The soil was brought from Sawa lake in AL-Muthanna Governorate in Iraq, with gypsum content 65.5%, A set of Odometer tests were performed to determine the collapsibility potential (CP) for treated and untreated gypsum soil. The result shows that adding a different per
... Show More
(47)
Petroleum is one of the most important substances consumed by man at present times, a major energy source in this century, petroleum oils can cause environmental pollution during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use, petroleum hydrocarbons pollutions ranging from soil, ground water to marine environment, become an inevitable problem in the modern life, current study focused on bioremediation process of hydrocarbons contaminants that remaining in the bottom of gas cylinders and discharged to the soil. Twenty-four bacterial isolates were isolated from contaminated soils all of them gram negative bacteria, bacterial isolates screening to investigate the ability of biodegradation of hydrocarbons, these isolates
... Show More
Soil stabilization with stone powder is a good solution for the construction of subgrade for road way and railway lines, especially under the platforms and mostly in transition zones between embankments and rigid structures, where the mechanical properties of supporting soils are very influential. Stone powder often has a unique composition which justifies the need for research to study the feasibility of using this stone powder type for ground improvement applications. This paper presents results from a comprehensive laboratory study carried out to investigate the feasibility of using stone powder for improvement of engineering properties of clays.
The stone powder contains bassanite (CaSO4. ½ H
... Show MoreIn this paper, a shallow foundation (strip footing), 1 m in width is assumed to be constructed on fully saturated and partially saturated Iraqi soils, and analyzed by finite element method. A procedure is proposed to define the H – modulus function from the soil water characteristic curve which is measured by the filter paper method. Fitting methods are applied through the program (SoilVision). Then, the soil water characteristic curve is converted to relation correlating the void ratio and matric suction. The slope of the latter relation can be used to define the H – modulus function. The finite element programs SIGMA/W and SEEP/W are then used in the analysis. Eight nodded isoparametric quadrilateral elements are used for modeling
... Show More
(2)
Cohesive soils present difficulties in construction projects because it usually contains expansive clay minerals. However, the engineering properties of cohesive soils can be stabilized by using various techniques. The research aims to elaborate on the influences of using hydrated lime on the consistency, compaction, and shear strength properties of clayey soil samples from Sulaimnai city, northern Iraq. The proportions of added hydrated lime are 0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10% to the natural soil sample. The results yielded considerable effects of hydrated lime on the engineering properties of the treated soil sample and enhancement its strength. The soil's liquid limit, plasticity index, and optimum moisture content were de
... Show More
(8)
(77)
(78)
This work deals with thermal cracking of heavy vacuum gas oil which produced from the top of vacuum distillation unit at Al- DURA refinery, by continuous process. An experimental laboratory plant scale was constructed in laboratories of chemical engineering department, Al-Nahrain University and Baghdad University. The thermal cracking process was carried out at temperature ranges between 460-560oC and atmospheric pressure with liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) equal to 15hr-1.The liquid product from thermal cracking unit was distilled by atmospheric distillation device according to ASTM D-86 in order to achieve two fractions, below 220oC as a gasoline fraction and above 220oC as light cycle o
... Show More
This work studied the facilitation of the transportation of Sharqi Baghdad heavy crude oil characterized with high viscosity 51.6 cSt at 40 °C, low API 18.8, and high asphaltenes content 7.1 wt.%, by reducing its viscosity from break down asphaltene agglomerates using different types of hydrocarbon and oxygenated polar solvents such as toluene, methanol, mix xylenes, and reformate. The best results are obtained by using methanol because it owns a high efficiency to reduce viscosity of crude oil to 21.1 cSt at 40 °C. Toluene, xylenes and reformate decreased viscosity to 25.3, 27.5 and 28,4 cSt at 40 °C, respectively. Asphaltenes content decreased to 4.2 wt. % by using toluene at 110 °C. And best improvement in API of the heavy crude o
... Show MoreHydrophobic silica aerogels were successfully preparation by an ambient pressure drying method from sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) with different pH values (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). In this study, acidic HCl (1M), a basic NH4OH (1M) were selected as a catalyst to perform the surface modification in a TMCS (trimethylchlorosilane) solution. The surface chemical modification of the aerogels was assured by the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic studies. Other physical properties, such as pore volume and pore size and specific surface area were determined by Brunauer-Emmett- Teller (BET) method. The effect of pH values on the bulk density of aerogel. The sol–gel parameter pH value in the sol, have marked effects on the physical proper
... Show More