The primary objective of this study was to identify the mechanisms for the development and propagation of longitudinal cracks that initiate at the surface of composite pavement. In this study the finite element program ANSYS version (5.4) was used and the model worked out using this program has the ability to analyze a composite pavement structure of different layer properties. Also, the aim of this study was modeling and analyzing of the composite pavement structure with the physical presence of crack induced in concrete underlying layer. The results obtained indicates that increasing the thickness of the asphalt layer tends to decrease the stress intensity factor, which may be attributed to the rapidly decrease of horizontal tensile st

This paper presents an investigation to the effect of the forming speed on healing voids that inhabit at various size in an ingot. The study was performed by using finite element method with bilinear isotropic material option, circular type voids were considered. The closure index was able to predict the minimum press force necessary to consolidate voids and the reduction. The simulation was carried out, on circular cross-section lead specials containing a central void of different size. At a time with a flat die, different ratio of inside to outside radius was taken with different speed to find the best result of void closure.

Abstract

Hexapod robot is a flexible mechanical robot with six legs. It has the ability to walk over terrain. The hexapod robot look likes the insect so it has the same gaits. These gaits are tripod, wave and ripple gaits. Hexapod robot needs to stay statically stable at all the times during each gait in order not to fall with three or more legs continuously contacts with the ground. The safety static stability walking is called (the stability margin). In this paper, the forward and inverse kinematics are derived for each hexapod’s leg in order to simulate the hexapod robot model walking using MATLAB R2010a for all gaits and the geometry in order to derive the equations of the sub-constraint workspaces for each

In the last two decades, arid and semi-arid regions of China suffered rapid changes in the Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) due to increasing demand on food, resulting from growing population. In the process of this study, we established the land use/cover classification in addition to remote sensing characteristics. This was done by analysis of the dynamics of (LUCC) in Zhengzhou area for the period 1988-2006. Interpretation of a laminar extraction technique was implied in the identification of typical attributes of land use/cover types. A prominent result of the study indicates a gradual development in urbanization giving a gradual reduction in crop field area, due to the progressive economy in Zhengzhou. The results also reflect degradati

Abstract

     Machining residual stresses correlate very closely with the cutting parameters and the tool geometries. This research work aims to investigate the effect of cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut on the surface residual stress of steel AISI 1045 after face milling operation. After each milling test, the residual stress on the surface of the workpiece was measured by using X-ray diffraction technique. Design of Experiment (DOE) software was employed using the response surface methodology (RSM) technique with a central composite rotatable design to build a mathematical model to determine the relationship between the input variables and the response. The results showed that both

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

The pervaporation using a commercial hydrophilic ceramic membrane supplied from PERVATECH was conducted. The dehydration of ethanol/ water system was used as a model for the pervaporation study. Pervaporation experiments of ethanol/water system were carried out in the temperature range of 303-343K, ethanol concentration in the feed 10-90 vol. % and the feed flow rate in the range of 0.5-10 L/min.  In this work, the effect of operation parameters on permeates fluxes as well as permeates separation factors have been studied. The Water flux is strongly dependent on the temperature; it increased with increasing in temperature, which in turn decreased the selectivity of membrane to water molecules.

In addition water flux was decr

Abstract

      The present study investigates the effect of acetic acid on corrosion behavior and its potential of hydrothermally sealed anodized AA2319-Al-alloys. Anodizing treatment was performed in stagnant phosphoric acid electrolyte with or without addition of acetic acid. Hydrothermal sealing was carried out in boiling water for each anodized specimen. The open circuit potential of the unsealed and sealed anodized samples was examined using open circuit potential measurement for the purpose of starting in scanning polarization diagrams. The potentiostatic polarization technique measurements were performed to assess corrosion behavior and sealing quality (i.e., degree of sealing) of

 Abstract

This paper is an experimental work to determinate the effect of welding velocity and formed arc energy for CO2-MAG fusion weld pool. The input parameters (arc voltage, wire feed speed and gas flow rate) were investigated to find their effects on the weld joint efficiency. Design of experiment with response surface methodology technique was used to build empirical mathematical models for welding velocity and arc energy in term of the input welding parameters. The predicted quadratic models were statistically checked for adequacy purpose by ANOVA analysis. Additionally, numerical optimization was conducted to obtain the optimum values for welding velocity and arc energy. A good agree

In this paper it is required to enhance the performance of a mechanical system (here: a Hoisting System) where it is preferred to lift a different payloads with approximately the same speed of lifting and keeping at the same time the good performance, and this of course needs some intelligence of the system which will be responsible on measuring the present load and taking into account the speed and performance desired in order to achieve the requirements or the criteria. The process therefore is a Mechatronics System design which includes a measuring system, a control or automation technique, and an actuating system. The criteria built here in this research using a given Hoist system's characteristics and parameters and changing one of

In this research, we have added nano anatase TiO₂ as a partial replacement of Portland cement by a weight percentage of (0.25 to 1%) for the development of properties for protection against bacteria. The control mix was made by using "the cement to sand" proportion about (1: 2.75) with the "water to cement" proportion of (0.5) to study the structure, porosity, water absorption, density, mechanical properties, as well as anti-bacterial behavior. Inspections have been done such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscope (AFM) for mortar. Experimental results showed that after the addition of Nano powders in cement mortar, the structural properties improved significantly with the development of hydration o

The oxidative degradation of Orange G dye by nanosized CeO₂ catalyst has been performed in this study. The catalyst was prepared by precipitation method. Various characterization techniques were carried out to study the physical and chemical properties of the synthesized catalyst. The XRD result confirms well the formation of CeO₂ cubic phase.  The FTIR result showed the effect of calcination temperature for CeO₂ was clearly observed due to reduction in band intensity compared to uncalcined Ce nitrate sample. Meanwhile, the diffused reflection spectra recorded reflection spectra at 414 nm with an energy gap of 3.2 ev. The decolorization of Orange G dye by oxidation process were carried out  unde

This paper describes a new proposed structure of the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller based on modified Elman neural network for the DC-DC buck converter system which is used in battery operation of the portable devices. The Dolphin Echolocation Optimization (DEO) algorithm is considered as a perfect on-line tuning technique therefore, it was used for tuning and obtaining the parameters of the modified Elman neural-PID controller to avoid the local minimum problem during learning the proposed controller. Simulation results show that the best weight parameters of the proposed controller, which are taken from the DEO, lead to find the best action and unsaturated state that will stabilize the Buck converter system performan

Nowadays, still images are used everywhere in the digital world. The shortages of storage capacity and transmission bandwidth make efficient compression solutions essential. A revolutionary mathematics tool, wavelet transform, has already shown its power in image processing. The major topic of this paper, is improve the compresses of still images by Multiwavelet based on estimation the high Multiwavelet coefficients in high frequencies sub band  by interpolation instead of sending all Multiwavelet coefficients. When comparing the proposed approach with other compression methods Good result obtained

The objective of this study was to develop neural network algorithm, (Multilayer Perceptron), based correlations for the prediction overall volumetric mass-transfer coefficient (k_La), in slurry bubble column for gas-liquid-solid systems. The Multilayer Perceptron is a novel technique based on the feature generation approach using back propagation neural network. Measurements of overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient were made with the air - Water, air - Glycerin and air - Alcohol systems as the liquid phase in bubble column of 0.15 m diameter. For operation with gas velocity in the range 0-20 cm/sec, the overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient was found to decrease w

A free convective heat transfer from the inside surface of a uniformly heated vertical circular tube has been experimentally investigated under a constant wall heat flux boundary condition for laminar air flow in the ranges of Ra_L from 6.910⁸ to 510⁹. The effect of the different sections (restrictions) lengths placed at the exit of the heated tube on the surface temperature distribution, the local and average heat transfer coefficients were examined. The experimental apparatus consists of aluminum circular tube with 900 mm length and 30 mm inside diameter (L/D=30). The exit sections (restrictions) were included circular tubes having the same inside diameter as the heated tube but with different lengths of

      Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), Natural gas (NG) and hydrogen were used to operate spark ignition internal combustion engine Ricardo E6, to compare NOx emissions emitted from the engine, with that emitted from engine fueled with gasoline as a fuel.

      The study was done when engine operated at HUCR for gasoline, compared with its operation at HUCR for each fuel. Compression ratio, equivalence ratio and spark timing were studied at constant speed 25rps.

The results appeared that NOx concentrations will be at maximum value in the lean side near the stoichiometric ratio, and reduced with moving away from this ratio for mixture at both s

Natural convection heat transfer is experimentally investigated for laminar air flow in a vertical circular tube by using the boundary condition of constant wall heat flux in the ranges of (Ra_L) from (1.1*10⁹) to (4.7*10⁹). The experimental set-up was designed for determining the effect of different types of restrictions placed at entry of heated tube in bottom position, on the surface temperature distribution and on the local and average heat transfer coefficients. The apparatus was made with an electrically heated cylinder of a length (900mm) and diameter (30mm). The entry restrictions were included a circular tube of same diameter as the heated cylinder but with lengths of (60cm, 120cm), sharp-edge and

The study aims mainly to evaluate the performance of Sharq Dijila water treatment plant in removing turbidity for the period of 1-4-2001 to 31-3-2004. Daily data for turbidity of raw, clarified, filtered, and supplied water were analyzed. The results of the study showed that there is a wide variation in turbidity levels of raw water fluctuating between 10-1000 NTU with mean value of 41.3 NTU. Turbidity values of the clarified water varied between 1.4-77 NTU. Based on the turbidity value of 10 NTU and 20 NTU (the design maximum turbidity) the readings gave an acceptable percentage of 32.4% and 86% respectively. The turbidity of filtered water ranged between 0.2-4.5 NTU which are completely in compliance with Iraqi and WHO standards. In ac

      In this research, a variable stiffness actuator is proposed to enhance the damping of the mechanical vibrating system. The frequency response analysis of the vibrating system is dependant in order to analyze and synthesis this semi-active damping, where the suggested process is using active filter to estimate the present frequency of the vibration system, and this will limit the value of the stiffness of the vibrated system. Two active filter s are needed, low-pass-filter (LPF) to choose the higher stiffness of the actuator at small frequencies as well as more damping and high-pass-filter (HPF) to choose the lower stiffness of the actuator at high frequencies as well as more damping, and so

Pollutants generation is strongly dependant on the firing temperature and reaction rates of the gaseous reactants in the gas turbine combustion chamber. An experimental study is conducted on a two-shaft T200D micro-gas turbine engine in order to evaluate the impact of injecting ethanol directly into the compressor inlet air on the exhaust emissions. The study is carried out in constant speed and constant load engine tests. Generally, the results showed that when ethanol was added in a concentration of 20% by volume of fuel flow; NO_x emission was reduced by the half, while CO and UHC emissions were almost doubled with respect to their levels when burning conventional LPG fuel alone.

The design of components subjected to contact stress as local compressive stress is important in engineering application especially in ball and socket Joining.  Two kinds of contact stress are introduced in the ball and socket joint, the first is from normal contact while the other is from sliding contact. Although joining two long links (drive shaft in steering cars) will cause the effect of flexural and tensional buckling stress in hollow columns through the ball and socket ends on the failure condition of the joining mechanism. In this paper the consideration of the combined effect of buckling Load and contact stress on the ball and socket joints have been taken, epically on the stress distribution in the contact area. Different

The rate of gas induction was measured in gas-inducing type mechanically agitated contactors provided with two impellers. A reactor of 0.5 m i.d. was used with a working capacity of 60 liters of liquid. Tap water was used as the liquid phase, and air was used as the gas phase. The bioreactor mixing system consists of two equal diameter stirrers; the top impeller is shrouded-disk/curved-blade turbine with six evacuated bending blades, while the bottom impeller was disk turbine. The impeller speed was varied in the range of 50 to 800 rpm. The ratio of impeller diameter to tank diameter (D/T) and the submergence (S) of upper impeller from the top were varied. The effects of clearance of lower impeller from the tank bottom (C₂) an

 Active worms have posed a major security threat to the Internet, and many research efforts have focused on them. This paper is interested in internet worm that spreads via TCP, which accounts for the majority of internet traffic. It presents an approach that use a hybrid solution between two detection algorithms: behavior base detection and signature base detection to have the features of each of them. The aim of this study is to have a good solution of detecting worm and stealthy worm with the feature of the speed. This proposal was designed in distributed collaborative scheme based on the small-world network model to effectively improve the system performance.

This paper presents a robust algorithm for the assessment of risk priority for medical equipment based on the calculation of static and dynamic risk factors and Kohnen Self Organization Maps (SOM). Four risk parameters have been calculated for 345 medical devices in two general hospitals in Baghdad. Static risk factor components (equipment function and physical risk) and dynamics risk components (maintenance requirements and risk points) have been calculated. These risk components are used as an input to the unsupervised Kohonen self organization maps. The accuracy of the network was found to be equal to 98% for the proposed system. We conclude that the proposed model gives fast and accurate assessment for risk priority and it works as p

This article introduces a numerical study on heat exchange and corrosion coefficients of Zinc–water nanofluid stream in a circular tube fitted with swirl generator utilizing CFD emulation. Different  forms of swirl generator which have the following properties of plain twisted tape (PTT) and baffle wings twisted tape (BTT) embeds with various ratio of twisting (y = 2.93, 3.91 and 4.89), baffle inclination angles (β = 0°, - 30° and 30) joined with 1%, 1.5% and 2% volume fraction of ZnO nanofluid were utilized for simulation. The results demonstrated that the heat and friction coefficients conducted by these two forms of vortex generator raised with Reynolds number, twist ratio and baffle inclination angles decreases. Likewise, t

Enzymatic hydrolysis process of lignocellulosic biomass materials is difficult because of inherent structural features of biomass, which represents barriers that prevent complete hydrolysis; therefore, pretreatment techniques are necessary to render biomass highly digestible in enzymatic hydrolysis process. In this research, (non?) oxidative short-term lime pretreatment of willow wood was used. A weight of  11.40 g of willow wood was mixed with an excess of calcium hydroxide (0.4 g Ca(OH)₂/g raw biomass) and water loading (15 g/g raw biomass). Lime pretreatment was carried out for various periods of time including 1, 2, 3.5, 5 and 6 h, with temperatures at 100, 113, 130, 147 and 160⁰C, and oxygen pressures as o

This study was conducted to determine the effects of concentration of hydrochloric acids, temperature, and time on the hydrolysis of soya proteins (defatted soya flour) by determining the value of total protein nitrogen  concentration, and amino nitrogen concentration of protein, peptides, and amino acids, and then calculated the hydrolysis rate of proteins.

        The variables of the conditions of hydrolysis process was achieved in this study with the following range value of tests parameter:

• Concentration of HCl solution ranged between 1-7 N,
• Hydrolysis temperature ranged between 35-95 °C, and
• The time of hydroly

Todays, World is faced an energy crisis because of a continuous increasing the consumption of fuels due to intension demand for all types of vehicles. This study is one of the efforts dealing with reduce the weight of vehicles by using a new material of sandwich steel, which consists of two skin steel sheets with core of a polymer material. Resistance spot welding (RSW) can be easily implemented on metals; however a cupper shunt tool was designed to perform the resistance welding of sandwich steel with DP800 cover sheets to resolve a non-conductivity problem of a polymer core. Numerical simulations with SORPAS^®3D were employed to test the weldability of this new material and supported by many practical experiments. In conclus

In this study, NaOH dissolution method was applied to dissolve cellulose fibers which extracted from date palm fronds (type Al-Zahdi) taken from Iraqi gardens. In this process, (NaOH)-solution is brought into contact with the cellulose fibers at low temperature. Experiments were conducted with different concentrations of NaOH (4%, 6%, 8% and12%) weight percent at two cooling bath temperatures (-15 ^oC) and (-20^oC). Maximum cellulose dissolution was 23 wt% which obtained at 8 wt% concentration of NaOH and at cooling bath temperature of -20^oC. In order to enhance the cellulose fibers dissolution, the sample was pretreated with Fenton's reagent which consists of