Natural bitumen (NB) is a highly precious material and has drawn increasing attention due to its unique properties, especially since it is available in large quantities and has been used in limited fields. In this research, the exploitation of NB from sulfur springs as an alternative energy resource in the production of asphalt pavement is evaluated. It can be concluded from the experimental results that the chemical composition and surface morphology of NB samples are different from those of base asphalt. Besides, the rheological properties of virgin NB are not sufficient for paving work. To overcome this obstacle, NB from five different springs is modified with limestone filler (LSF) to enhance its properties. LSF is a natural material an

This study investigates the influence of five nanomaterials nano-alumina (NA), nano-silica (NS), nano-titanium (NT), nano-zinc oxide (NZ), and carbon nanotubes (CNT)on enhancing the fatigue resistance of asphalt binders. NA, NS, and NT were incorporated at dosages of 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10%, while NZ and CNT were added at 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5%. A series of physical, rheological, and performance-based tests were conducted, including penetration, softening point, ductility, and rotational viscosity. Based on the outcomes of the overall desirability evaluation, the first three dosages of each nanomaterial were selected for further testing due to their superior workability and binder flexibility. Subsequent investigations included the high-tem

This article deals with the impact of including transverse ribs within the absorber tube of the concentrated linear Fresnel collector (CLFRC) system with a secondary compound parabolic collector (CPC) on thermal and flow performance coefficients. The enhancement rates of heat transfer due to varying governing parameters were compared and analyzed parametrically at Reynolds numbers in the range 5,000–13,000, employing water as the heat transfer fluid. Simulations were performed to solve the governing equations using the finite volume method (FVM) under various boundary conditions. For all Reynolds numbers, the average Nusselt number in the circular tube in the CLFRC system with ribs was found to be larger than that of the plain abs

The implementation of nanotechnology in all industries is one of most significant research fields. Nanoparticles have shown a promising application in subsurface fields. On the other hand, various surfactants have been used in the oil industry to reduce oil/water interfacial tension and also widely used to stabilize the nano-suspensions. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the improvements of surfactants ability in term of interfacial tension (γ) reduction utilizing addition of silicon dioxide nanoparticles at different temperatures and salinity. The pendant drop technique has been used to measure γ and electrical conductivity has been used to measure the critical micelle concentration (CMC). The synergistic effects of

The present investigation focuses on the response of simply supported reinforced concrete rectangular-section beams with multiple openings of different sizes, numbers, and geometrical configurations. The advantages of the reinforcement concrete beams with multiple opening are mainly, practical benefit including decreasing the floor heights due to passage of the utilities through the beam rather than the passage beneath it, and constructional benefit that includes the reduction of the self-weight of structure resulting due to the reduction of the dead load that achieves economic design. To optimize beam self-weight with its ultimate resistance capacity, ten reinforced concrete beams having a length, width, and depth of 2700, 100, and

Shear wave velocity is an important feature in the seismic exploration that could be utilized in reservoir development strategy and characterization. Its vital applications in petrophysics, seismic, and geomechanics to predict rock elastic and inelastic properties are essential elements of good stability and fracturing orientation, identification of matrix mineral and gas-bearing formations. However, the shear wave velocity that is usually obtained from core analysis which is an expensive and time-consuming process and dipole sonic imager tool is not commonly available in all wells. In this study, a statistical method is presented to predict shear wave velocity from wireline log data. The model concentrated to predict shear wave velocity fr

In this paper, we present multiple bit error correction coding scheme based on extended Hamming product code combined with type II HARQ using shared resources for on chip interconnect. The shared resources reduce the hardware complexity of the encoder and decoder compared to the existing three stages iterative decoding method for on chip interconnects. The proposed method of decoding achieves 20% and 28% reduction in area and power consumption respectively, with only small increase in decoder delay compared to the existing three stage iterative decoding scheme for multiple bit error correction. The proposed code also achieves excellent improvement in residual flit error rate and up to 58% of total power consumption compared to the other err

     The heterogeneity nature of carbonate reservoirs shows sever scattering of the data, therefore, one has to be cautious in using the permeability- porosity correlation for calculating permeability unless a good correlation coefficient is available. In addition, a permeability- porosity correlation technique is not enough by itself since simulation studies also require more accurate tools for reservoir description and diagnosis of flow and non-flow units. Evaluation of reservoir characterization  was conducted by this paper for Mishrif Formation in south Iraqi oil field (heterogeneous carbonate reservoir), namely the permeability-porosity correlation, the hydraulic units (HU’s) and global hydraulic elements (GHE

The action of high repeated trucks load associated with dramatically elevated ambient temperatures leads to the most harmful distress in asphalt pavements occurred in Iraq known as rutting. Essentially, it is produced from the accumulation of irrecoverable strains, which mainly occurred in the asphalt layers. That visually demonstrated as a longitudinal depression in the wheel paths as well as small upheavals to the sides. Poly Phosphoric Acid (PPA) has been used as a means of producing modified asphalt binders and the interest to use it has increased in recent years. The PPA provides modified asphalt binder, which is relatively cheaply produced compared to polymer-modified asphalt. In this paper, PPA was used by three-percentages 1

Used vegetable oil was introduced to transesterfication reaction to produce Biodiesel fuel suitable for diesel engines. Method of production was consisted of filtration, transesterfication, separation and washing. Transesterfication was studied extensively with different operating conditions, temperature range (35-80oC), catalyst concentration (0.5-2 wt. % based on oil), mixing time (30-120 min.) with constant oil/methanol weight ratio 5:1 and mixing speed 1300 rpm. The concentration of Fatty acid methyl esters (Biodiesel) was determined for the transesterficated oil samples, besides of some important physical properties such as specific gravity, viscosity, pour point and flash point. The behavior of methyl esters production and the physica

This paper is devoted to investigate the effect of internal curing technique on the properties of self-compacting concrete. In this study, self-compacting concrete is produced by using limestone powder as partial replacement by weight of cement with percentage of (5%), sand is partially replaced by volume with saturated fine lightweight aggregate which is thermostone aggregate as internal curing material in three percentages of (5%, 10%, 15%) for self-compacting concrete, and the use of two external curing conditions which are water and air. The experimental work was divided into three parts: in the first part, the workability tests of fresh self-compacting concrete were conducted. The second part included conducting compressive str

In the coming decade, a substantial rise in energy consumption within the buildings sector is predicted to lead to a 30% increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The choice of materials for building envelopes significantly influences the overall energy demand of HVAC systems, which contribute significantly to electricity usage. To enhance compatibility between grey clay and straw, a suggested approach involves using a composite material comprising rice water and grey clay, enriched with a high proportion of rice straw and soaked in rice water. This environmentally friendly technique yields a green construction material capable of reducing energy consumption in HVAC systems by up to 35.6% over a 24-h period. The potential energy savings of this

This work is to examine the employment of curved fins to boost heat recovery in a double-pipe containment system filled with phase change material (PCM). The study utilizes CFD modeling, validated against experimental benchmarks, to evaluate how various geometric parameters of curved fins affect system performance. Findings demonstrate that adjusting the fin angular curvature from 60◦ to 180◦ yielded a 22.1 % decrease in the time required for solidification while simultaneously improving heat recovery efficiency by 32.0 %. When the fin base spacing was increased from 5 mm to 15 mm, the system showed a 14.5 % solidification time saving and a 20.9 % heat recovery improvement. Furthermore, modifying the joining angle between upper fins fro

Isolated Bacteria from the roots of barley were studied; two stages of processes Isolated and screening were applied in order to find the best bacteria to remove kerosene from soil. The active bacteria are isolated for kerosene degradation process. It has been found that Klebsiella pneumoniae sp. have the highest kerosene degradation which is 88.5%. The optimum conditions of kerosene degradation by Klebsiella pneumonia sp. are pH5, 48hr incubation period, 35°C temperature and 10000ppm the best kerosene concentration. The results 10000ppm showed that the maximum kerosene degradation can reach 99.58% after 48 h of incubation. Higher Kerosene degradation which was 99.83% was obtained at pH5. Kerosene degradation was found to be maximum at 3

The purpose of this article was to identify and assess the importance of risk factors in the tendering phase of construction projects. The construction project cannot succeed without the identification and categorization of these risk elements. In this article, a questionnaire for likelihood and impact was designed and distributed to a panel of specialists to analyze risk factors. The risk matrix was also used to research, explore, and identify the risks that influence the tendering phase of construction projects. The probability and impact values assigned to risk are used to calculate the risk's score. A risk matrix is created by combining probability and impact criteria. To determine the main risk elements for the tender phase of

In Australia, most of the existing buildings were designed before the release of the Australian standard for earthquake actions in 2007. Therefore, many existing buildings in Australia lack adequate seismic design, and their seismic performance must be assessed. The recent earthquake that struck Mansfield, Victoria near Melbourne elevated the need to produce fragility curves for existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Australia. Fragility curves are frequently utilized to assess buildings’ seismic performance and it is defined as the demand probability surpassing capacity at a given intensity level. Numerous factors can influence the results of the fragility assessment of RC buildings. Among the most important factors that can affe

In this study, the physical, and mechanical properties of low-cost and biocomposites were evaluated. The walnut shell and date palm frond fibers were thermally treated in an oven at a temperature of 70°C and then chemically treated with NaOH and distilled water solution, after these treatments, the biocomposite materials will be thermally treated again at 50°C. This procedure was performed for three types of biocomposite; Walnut shell Fiber Reinforced Polymer (WFRP), Date palm Fiber Reinforced Polymer (DFRP), and Hybrid Fiber Reinforced Polymer (HFRP), whereas the biocomposite sheets consisting of 30% biofibers and 70% unsaturated polyester, the mechanical test specimens were cut by a CNC machine according to ASTM standards. The e

Modified algae with nano copper oxide (CuO) were used as adsorption media to remove tetracycline (TEC) from aqueous solutions. Functional groups, morphology, structure, and percentages of surfactants before and after adsorption were characterised through Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Several variables, including pH, connection time, dosage, initial concentrations, and temperature, were controlled to obtain the optimum condition. Thermodynamic studies, adsorption isotherm, and kinetics models were examined to describe and recognise the type of interactions involved. Resultantly, the best operation conditions were at pH 7, contact time

The optimum design is characterized by structural concrete components that can sustain loads well beyond the yielding stage. This is often accomplished by a fulfilled ductility index, which is greatly influenced by the arrangement of the shear reinforcement. The current study investigates the impact of the shear reinforcement arrangement on the structural response of the deep beams using a variety of parameters, including the type of shear reinforcement, the number of lacing bars, and the lacing arrangement pattern. It was found that lacing reinforcement, as opposed to vertical stirrups, enhanced the overall structural response of deep beams, as evidenced by test results showing increases in ultimate loads, yielding, and cracking of