The paper deals with claims in construction projects in Iraq and studies their types, causes, impacts, resolution methods and then proposes a management system to control the impacts of claims. Two parts have been done to achieve the research objective (theoretical part and practical part). The findings showed that the main types of the claims are extra work claims, different site condition claims, delay claims and the main causes of the claims are variation of the orders, design errors and omission, delay in payments by owner, variation in quantities and scheduling errors. The claims have bad impacts on the cost by increasing (10% to 25%) and also on the duration of the project by increasing from (25% to 50%).The negotiation is the main

In this paper, an approach for object tracking that is inspired from human oculomotor system is proposed and verified experimentally. The developed approach divided into two phases, fast tracking or saccadic phase and smooth pursuit phase. In the first phase, the field of the view is segmented into four regions that are analogue to retinal periphery in the oculomotor system. When the object of interest is entering these regions, the developed vision system responds by changing the values of the pan and tilt angles to allow the object lies in the fovea area and then the second phase will activate. A fuzzy logic method is implemented in the saccadic phase as an intelligent decision maker to select the values of the pan and tilt angle based

 A New developed technique to estimate the necessary six elastic constants of homogeneous laminate of special orthotropic properties are presented in this paper for the first time. The new approach utilizes the elasto-static deflection behavior of composite cantilever beam employing the famous theory of Timoshenko. Three extracted strips of the composite plate are tested for measuring the bending deflection at two locations. Each strip is associated to a preferred principal axis and the deflection is measured in two orthogonal planes of the beam domain. A total of five trails of testing is accomplished and the numerical results of the stiffness coefficients are evaluated correctly under the contribution of the macromechanic

Activated carbon was Produced from coconut shell and was used for removing sulfate from industrial waste water in batch Processes. The influence of various parameter were studied such as pH (4.5 – 9.) , agitation time (0 – 120)min and adsorbent dose (2 – 10) gm.

The Langmuir and frandlich adsorption capacity models were been investigated where showed there are fitting with langmmuir model with squre regression value ( 0.76). The percent of removal of  sulfate (22% - 38%) at (PH=7) in the isotherm experiment increased  with adsorbent mass increasing. The maximum removal value of sulfate at  different pH experiments is (43%) at pH=7.

Heavy metal consider as major environmental pollutants. Many of industrial wastewater effluents contain a wide range of these heavy metals. The adsorption of Cd2+ and Pb2+ metal ions from aqueous solution by activated carbon was studied. The results showed that maximum adsorption capacity occurred at 486.9×10-3 mg/kg for Pb2+ ion and 548.8×10-3 mg/kg for Cd2+ ion. The adsorption in a mixture of the metal ions had a balancing effect on the adsorption capacity of the activated carbon. The adsorption capacity of each metal ion was affected by the presence of other metal ions rather than its presence individually. The study showed the presence of other heavy metals attribute to the reduction in the activated carbon capacity, and the adsorp

Digital image is widely used in computer applications. This paper introduces a proposed method of image zooming based upon inverse slantlet transform and image scaling. Slantlet transform (SLT) is based on the principle of designing different filters for different scales.

      First we apply SLT on color image, the idea of transform color image into slant, where large coefficients are mainly the   signal and smaller one represent the noise. By suitably modifying these coefficients , using scaling up image by  box and Bartlett filters so that the image scales up to 2X2 and then inverse slantlet transform from modifying coefficients using to the reconstructed image .

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In this work, the effect of vortex shedding on the solar collector performance of the parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) was estimated experimentally. The effect of structure oscillations due to wind vortex shedding on solar collector performance degradation was estimated. The performance of PTSC is evaluated by using the useful heat gain and the thermal instantaneous efficiency. Experimental work to simulate the vortex shedding excitation was done. The useful heat gain and the thermal efficiency of the parabolic trough collector were calculated from experimental measurements with and without vortex loading. The prototype of the collector was fabricated for this purpose. The effect of vortex shedding at different operation condition

Abstract

Magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) is one of the advanced finishing processes, which produces a high level of surface quality and is primarily controlled by a magnetic field. This paper study the effect of the magnetic abrasive finishing system on the material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) in terms of magnetic abrasive finishing system for eight of input parameters, and three levels according to Taguchi array (L27) and using the regression model to analysis the output (results). These parameters are the (Poles geometry angle, Gap between the two magnetic poles, Grain size powder, Doze of the ferromagnetic abrasive powder, DC current, Workpiece velocity, Magnetic poles velocity, and Finishi

In modern hydraulic control systems, the trend in hydraulic power applications is to improve efficiency and performance. “Proportional valve” is generally applied to pressure, flow and directional-control valves which continuously convert a variable input signal into a smooth and proportional hydraulic output signal. It creates a variable resistance (orifice) upstream and downstream of a hydraulic actuator, and is meter in/meter out circuit and hence pressure drop, and power losses are inevitable. If velocity (position) feedback is used, flow pattern control is possible. Without aforementioned flow pattern, control is very “loose” and relies on “visual” feed back by the operator. At this point, we should examine how this valv

This study presents the debonding propagation in single NiTi wire shape memory alloy into linear low-density polyethylene matrix composite the study of using the pull-out test. The aim of this study is to investigate the pull-out tests to check the interfacial strength of the polymer composite in two cases, with activation NiTinol wire and without activation. In this study, shape memory alloy NiTinol wire 2 mm diameter and linear fully annealed straight shape were used. The study involved experimental and finite element analysis and eventually comparison between them. This pull-out test is considered a substantial test because its results have a relation with behavior of smart composite materials. The pull-out test was carried out by a u

The purpose of this study is designate quenching and tempering heat treatment by using Taguchi technique to determine optimal factors of heat treatment (austenitizing temperature, percentage of nanoparticles, type of base media, nanoparticles type and soaking time) for increasing hardness, wear rate and impact energy properties of 420 martensitic stainless steel. An (L₁₈) orthogonal array was chosen for the design of experiment. The optimum process parameters were determined by using signal-to-noise ratio (larger is better) criterion for hardness and impact energy while (Smaller is better) criterion was for the wear rate. The importance levels of process parameters that effect on hardness, wear rate and impact energy propertie

This study is an approach to assign the land area of  Kirkuk city [ a city located in the northern of Iraq, 236 kilometers north of  Baghdad  and 83 kilometers  south of  Erbil [ Climatic atlas of  Iraq, 1941-1970  ]  into different  multi zones by using Satellite image and Arc Map10.3,  zones of different traffic noise pollutions. Land zonings process like what achieved in this paper will help and of it’s of a high interest point for the future of Kirkuk city especially urban

This study has been undertaken to postulate the mechanism of impact test at low velocities. Thin-walled tubes of 100Cr6 were deformed under axial compression. In the present work there are seven velocities (4.429,4.652,5.240,5.600,5.942,6.264, 6.569) m\sec were applied to show how they effect the load, change in length, also the kinetic energy. However, the comparison between the obtained results and the other studies (Alexandar[3] , Abramowicz[4], Ayad[5]) was made the present work and Ayad data show good agreement. Load, change in length, kinetic energy were determined to understand the impact test.

     The problem in the design of a cam is the analyzing of the mechanisms and dynamic forces that effect on the family of parametric polynomials for describing the motion curve. In present method, two ways have been taken for optimization of the cam size, first the high dynamic loading (such that impact and elastic stress waves propagation) from marine machine tool which translate by the roller follower to the cam surface and varies with time causes large contact loads and second it must include the factors of kinematics features including the acceleration, velocity, boundary condition and the unsymmetrical curvature of the cam profile for the motion curve.

     In the theoretical solution

The first successful implementation of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) was published a little over a decade ago. It is time to review the progress that has been made in this research area. This paper provides taxonomy for classifying Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) implementation of ANNs. Different implementation techniques and design issues are discussed, such as obtaining a suitable activation function and numerical truncation technique trade-off, the improvement of the learning algorithm to reduce the cost of neuron and in result the total cost and the total speed of the complete ANN. Finally, the implementation of a complete very fast circuit for the pattern of English Digit Numbers NN has four layers of 70 nodes (neurons) o

This paper studies the effects of stiffeners on shear lag in steel box girders with stiffened flanges. A three-dimensional linear finite element analysis using STAAD.Pro V8i program has been employed to evaluate and determine the actual top flange stress distribution and effective width in steel box girders. The steel plates of the flanges and webs have been modeled by four-node isoparametric shell elements, while the stiffeners have been modeled as beam elements. Different numbers (4, 8, and 15) for the steel stiffeners have been used in this study to establish their effects on the shear lag and longitudinal stresses in the flange. Using stiffeners reduced the magnitude of the top flange longitudinal stresses about 40%, but did

Abstract

Knowing the amount of residual stresses and find technological solutions to minimize and control them during the production operation are an important task because great levels of deformation which occurs in single point incremental forming (SPIF), this induce highly non-uniform residual stresses. In this papera propose of a method for multilayer single point incremental forming with change in thickness of the top plate (0.5, 0.7, 0.9) mm and lubrication or material between two plates(polymer, grease, grease with graphite, mos₂) to knowing an effect of this method  and parameters on residual stresses for the bottom plates. Also compare these results for the

The research aims to investigate the effects of GMAW or MIG welding process on the mechanical properties of dissimilar aluminum alloys 2024-T351 and AA 6061- T651. A series of experimental techniques have been conducted to evaluate mechanical properties of the alloys, by carrying out hardness, tensile and bending tests for welded and un-welded specimens.

Metal inert gas (MIG) has been carried out on sheet metal using ER- 4043(AlSi₅) as a filler metal and argon as shielded gas. The welded joints were tested by X-ray radiography and Faulty pieces were excluded.

Welding joints without defects are subjected to heat treatment including heating the joints in furnace to 170 °C for half an hour then air cooling to rel

Recently, wireless communication environments with high speeds and low complexity have become increasingly essential. Free-space optics (FSO) has emerged as a promising solution for providing direct connections between devices in such high-spectrum wireless setups. However, FSO communications are susceptible to weather-induced signal fluctuations, leading to fading and signal weakness at the receiver. To mitigate the effects of these challenges, several mathematical models have been proposed to describe the transition from weak to strong atmospheric turbulence, including Rayleigh, lognormal, Málaga, Nakagami-m, K-distribution, Weibull, Negative-Exponential, Inverse-Gaussian, G-G, and Fisher-Snedecor F distributions. This paper extensive

Worldwide, shipping documents are still primarily created and handled in the traditional paper manner. Processes taking place in shipping ports as a result are time-consuming and heavily dependent on paper. Shipping documents are particularly susceptible to paperwork fraud because they involve numerous parties with competing interests. With the aid of smart contracts, a distributed, shared, and append-only ledger provided by blockchain technology allows for the addition of new records. In order to increase maritime transport and port efficiency and promote economic development, this paper examines current maritime sector developments in Iraq and offers a paradigm to secure the management system based on a hyper-ledger fabric blockchain p

The purpose of the current investigation is to distinguish between working memory ( ) in five patients with vascular dementia ( ), fifteen post-stroke patients with mild cognitive impairment ( ), and fifteen healthy control individuals ( ) based on background electroencephalography (EEG) activity. The elimination of EEG artifacts using wavelet (WT) pre-processing denoising is demonstrated in this study. In the current study, spectral entropy ( ), permutation entropy ( ), and approximation entropy ( ) were all explored. To improve the  classification using the k-nearest neighbors ( NN) classifier scheme, a comparative study of using fuzzy neighbourhood preserving analysis with -decomposition ( ) as a dimensionality reduction technique an

      Products’ quality inspection is an important stage in every production route, in which the quality of the produced goods is estimated and compared with the desired specifications. With traditional inspection, the process rely on manual methods that generates various costs and large time consumption. On the contrary, today’s inspection systems that use modern techniques like computer vision, are more accurate and efficient. However, the amount of work needed to build a computer vision system based on classic techniques is relatively large, due to the issue of manually selecting and extracting features from digital images, which also produces labor costs for the system engineers.

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The Nano materials play a very important role in the heat transfer enhancement. An experimental investigation has been done to understand the behaviors of nano and micro materials on critical heat flux. Pool boiling experiments have used for several concentrations of nano and micro particles on a 0.4 mm diameter nickel chrome (Ni-Cr) wire heater which is heated electrically at atmospheric pressure. Zinc oxide(ZnO) and silica(SiO₂) were used as a nano and micro fluids with concentrations (0.01,0.05,0.1,0.3,0.5,1 g/L), a marked enhancement in CHF have been shown in the results for nano and micro fluids for different concentrations compared to distilled water. The deposition of the nano particles on the heater surface was the rea

The fall angle of sun rays on the surface of a photovoltaic PV panel and its temperature is negatively affecting the panel electrical energy produced and efficiency. The fall angle problem was commonly solved by using a dual-axis solar tracker that continually maintains the panel orthogonally positioning to the sun rays all day long. This leads to maximum absorption for solar radiation necessary to produce maximum amount of energy and maintain high level of electrical efficiency. To solve the PV panel temperature problem, a Water-Flow Double Glazing WFDG technique has been introduced as a new cooling tool to reduce the panel temperature. In this paper, an integration design of the water glazing system with a dual-axis tracker has been ac

Ovako Working Postures Analyzing System (OWAS) is a widely used method for studying awkward working postures in workplaces. This study with OWAS, analyzed working postures for manual material handling of laminations at stacking workstation for water pump assembly line in Electrical Industrial Company (EICO) / Baghdad. A computer program, WinOWAS, was used for the study. In real life workstation was found that more than 26% of the working postures observed were classified as either AC2 (slightly harmful), AC3 (distinctly harmful). Postures that needed to be corrected soon (AC3) and corresponding tasks, were identified. The most stressful tasks observed were grasping, handling, and positioning of the laminations from workers. The construct

Abstract

 In order to make an improvement associated with rotating biological contactor (RBC), a new design of biofilm reactor called as Rotating perforated disc biological contactor (RPBC) was developed in which the rotating discs are perforated. The transfer of oxygen from air to wastewater was investigated. Mass-transfer coefficient (K_La)  in the liquid phase was determined by measuring  the rate transfer of oxygen.  A   laboratory scale of (RPBC) consisted of a semicircular trough was used with a working capacity of 40 liters capacity of liquid. Synthetic wastewater was used as a liquid phase, while air was used as a gas phase.

The effects of m

The bony pelvis has a major role in weight transmission to the lower limbs. The complexities of its geometric form, material properties, and loading conditions render it an open subject to biomechanical analysis.

 The present study deals with area measurement, and three-dimensional finite element analysis of the hip bone to investigate magnitudes, load direction, and stress distribution under physiological loading conditions.

 The surface areas of the auricular surface, lunate surface, and symphysis pubis were measured in (35) adult hip bones. A solid model was translated into ANSYS parametric design language to be analyzed by finite element analysis method under different loading conditions.

The surface

This study is conducted to carry out a straightforward way appropriate for quality monitoring and stability of arc stud welding process, followed by a number of procedures to control the quality of welded samples, namely torque destructive testing and visual inspection context.  Those procedures were being performed to support the monitoring system and verify its validity. Thus, continuous on-line monitoring guarantees earlier discovering stud welding defects and avoiding weld repeatability. On-line welding electronic monitoring system is for non destructive determining if a just completed weld is satisfactory or unsatisfactory, depending on welding current peak value detected by the system. Also, it has been observed significant ha

This research involves studying the mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of “low carbon steel” (0.077wt% C) before and after welding using Arc, MIG and TIG welding. The mechanical properties include testing of microhardness, tensile strength, the results indicate that microhardness of TIG, MIG welding is more than arc welding, while tensile strength in arc welding more than TIG and MIG.

The corrosion behavior of low carbon weldments was performed by potentiostat at scan rate 3mV.sec^-1 in 3.5% NaCl to show the polarization resistance and calculate the corrosion rate from data of linear polarization by “Tafel extrapolation method”. The results indicate that the TIG welding increase the corrosion current d