Background and objectives: This study aimed at testing the effect of plastic sleeve or barrier, used to cover the guide of the light cure unit to prevent cross-infection, on the shear bond strength and site of bond failure of stainless steel and ceramic orthodontic brackets. Materials and methods: Forty orthodontic brackets; twenty stainless steel and twenty ceramic brackets bonded to forty extracted human maxillary first premolars using light cure adhesive cured with and without the use of a protective plastic barrier on the guide. Comparing the effect of this barrier on the shear bond strength and adhesive remnant index was performed using an independent t-test and Chi-square test. Results: The protective barrier had decreased the shear b

This paper demonstrates an experimental and numerical study aimed at comparing the influence of openings of different configurations on the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete gable roof beams. The experimental program consisted of testing six simply supported gable beams subjected to mid-point concentrated load. The variable which has been investigated in this work was opening's configuration (quadrilateral or circular) with the same upper and lower chords depth. The results indicate improvement in the beams’ flexural behavior when circular openings were used compared with that of quadrilateral openings, represented by an increase in ultimate load capacity and a decrease in deflection at the service limit. Also, there was an

An experimental study was conducted on pressure drop of water flow through vertical cylindrical packed beds in turbulent region and the influence of the operating parameters on its behavior. The bed packing was made of spherical and non-spherical particles (spheres, Rasching rings and intalox saddle) with aspect ratio range 3.46  D/dp  8.486 obtaining bed porosities 0.396 0.84 and Reynolds number 1217  21758. The system is consisted of 5 cm inside diameter Perspex column, 50 cm long; distilled water was pumped through the bed with flow rate 875, 1000, 1125, 1250,1375 and 1500 l/h and inlet water temperature 20, 30, 40 and 50 ˚C. The packed bed system was monitored by using LabVIEW program, were the result

<p>The current work investigated the combustion efficiency of biodiesel engines under diverse ratios of compression (15.5, 16.5, 17.5, and 18.5) and different biodiesel fuels produced from apricot oil, papaya oil, sunflower oil, and tomato seed oil. The combustion process of the biodiesel fuel inside the engine was simulated utilizing ANSYS Fluent v16 (CFD). On AV1 diesel engines (Kirloskar), numerical simulations were conducted at 1500 rpm. The outcomes of the simulation demonstrated that increasing the compression ratio (CR) led to increased peak temperature and pressures in the combustion chamber, as well as elevated levels of CO₂ and NO mass fractions and decreased CO emission values un

This research studies the development and synthesis of blended nanocomposites filled with Titanium dioxide (TiO2). Blended nanocomposites based on unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) and epoxy resins were synthesized by reactive blending. The optimum quantity from nano partical of titanium dioxide was selected and different weight proportions 1%, 3%, 5%, and 7% ratios of new epoxy are blended with UPR resin. The dielectric breakdown strength and thermal conductivity properties of the blended nanocomposites were compared with those of the basis material (UPR and 3% TiO2).The results show good compatibility epoxy resins with the UPR resin on blending, dielectric breakdown strength values  are higher while thermal conductivity values of

This paper reports a comprehensive study on the behavior of concavely curved soffit reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened in flexure with carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites under static loading. The main objective of this paper is to explore the effect of surface concavity on the bond performance of externally bonded wet layup CFRP sheets and laminates. An experimental program consisting of flexural strengthening of 24 RC beams with concavely curved soffits was carried out. All specimens were simply supported RC beams tested under three-point bending. Of the 24 beams, 6 beams were flat soffit RC beams, and the remainder were fabricated with concavely curved soffits with a degree of curvature that is ranging from 5 mm/m

Background: The microhardness of a composite resin is a vital parameter that is used to determine its clinical behavior. Measuring the microhardness of a composite resin has been used as an indirect method to assess its degree of conversion and extent of polymerization. The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of three curing distances (0, 2, and 4 mm) on the microhardness of the top and bottom surfaces of three types of flowable bulk-fill composite resins (smart dentin replacement, Opus bulk fill flow, and Tetric N). Material and method: Sixty-three specimens from the three types of composite resins (n=21) were fabricated using Teflon mold with a 4mm depth and a 5 mm internal diameter and cured for 20 seconds. For e

This research presents an experimental investigation on the influence of metakaolin replacement percentage upon some properties of different concrete types. Three types of concrete were adopted (self- compacted concrete, high performance concrete and reactive powder concrete) all of high sulphate (SO3) percentage from the fine aggregate weight, 0.75%. Three percentages of metakaolin replacement were selected to be studied (5, 7 and 10) %. Three types of concrete properties (compressive, flexural and splitting tensile strength) were adopted to achieve better understanding for the influence of adding metakaolin.. The output results indicated that the percentage of metakaolin had a different level of positive effect on the compressive strength