In recent years, the search for economic and environmentally friendly alternatives has become a global necessity to achieve sustainability and preserve raw materials. From this concept, natural bitumen (NB) derived from sulphur springs is now one of the most promising alternative energy resources for many applications, especially in asphalt pavement construction. Its low price and abundance characterise NB since sulphur springs produce thousands of tonnes of NB annually and are used in very limited fields. Two main objectives were adopted for this work. The first objective is to examine the virgin NB properties from five sulphur springs and compare them with petroleum asphalt. The second objective is to enhance NB properties by appl

The provision of openings in serviceable reinforced concrete beams may result in a substantial decline in the beam's capacity and integrity, indicating the necessity of opening strengthening. The present study investigates the experimental response of reinforced concrete T-beams with multiple web-strengthened openings disposed in shear span to static and impact loads. Fourteen RC T-beams were tested in two groups, each of seven beams. The first group was tested under static loading up to failure, while the second group was tested under repeated impact loading until the width of shear cracks reached 0.3 mm. The residual static strengths of the beams subjected to impact loading were then determined. The test variables considered were

This article presents the results of an experimental investigation of using carbon fiber–reinforced polymer sheets to enhance the behavior of reinforced concrete deep beams with large web openings in shear spans. A set of 18 specimens were fabricated and tested up to a failure to evaluate the structural performance in terms of cracking, deformation, and load-carrying capacity. All tested specimens were with 1500-mm length, 500-mm cross-sectional deep, and 150-mm wide. Parameters that studied were opening size, opening location, and the strengthening factor. Two deep beams were implemented as control specimens without opening and without strengthening. Eight deep beams were fabricated with openings but without strengthening, while

Recent years have witnessed an increase in the use of composite coatings for numerous applications, including aerospace, aircraft, and maritime vessels. These materials owe this popularity surge to the superior strength, weight, stiffness, and electrical insulation they exhibit over conventional substances, such as metals. The growing demand for such materials is accompanied by the inevitable need for fast, accurate, and affordable nondestructive testing techniques to reveal any possible defects within the coatings or any defects under coating. However, typical nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques such as ultrasonic testing (UT), infrared thermography (IRT), eddy current testing (ECT), and laser shearography (LS) have failed to p

This work deals with kinetics and chemical equilibrium studies of esterification reaction of ethanol with acetic acid. The esterification reaction was catalyzed by an acidic ion exchange resin (Amberlyst- 15) using a batch stirred tank reactor. The pseudo-homogenous and Eley-Rideal models were successfully fitted with experimental data. At first, Eley-Rideal model was examined for heterogeneous esterification of acetic acid and ethanol. The pseudo-homogenous model was investigated with a power-law model. The apparent reaction order was determined to be (0.88) for Ethanol and (0.92) for acetic acid with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.981 and 0.988, respectively. The reaction order was determined to be 4.1087x10-3 L0.8/(mol0.8.min) with

Alongside the development of high-speed rail, rail flaw detection is of great importance to ensure railway safety, especially for improving the speed and load of the train. Several conventional inspection methods such as visual, acoustic, and electromagnetic inspection have been introduced in the past. However, these methods have several challenges in terms of detection speed and accuracy. Combined inspection methods have emerged as a promising approach to overcome these limitations. Nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques in conjunction with artificial intelligence approaches have tremendous potential and viability because it is highly possible to improve the detection accuracy which has been proven in various conventional nondestr

This research is presented experimental and numerical investigations of composite concrete-steel plate shear walls under axial loads to predicate the effect of both concrete compressive strength and aspect ratio of the wall on the axial capacity, lateral displacement and axial shortening of the walls. The experimental program includes casting and testing two groups of walls with various aspect ratios. The first group with aspect ratio H/L=1.667 and the second group with aspect ratio H/L=2. Each group consists of three composite concrete -steel plate wall with three targets of cube compressive strength of values 39, 54.75 and 63.3 MPa. The tests result obtained that the increase in concrete compressive strength results in increasing

The present study explores the solar-induced photocatalytic degradation of reactive red (RR) and reactive turquoise (RT) dyes in a single system using TiO2 immobilized in xanthan gum (TiO2/XG), synthesized using the sol–gel dip-coating technique for direct precipitation. SEM-EDX, XRD, FTIR, and UV–Vis were used to assess the characteristics of the resulting catalyst. Moreover, the effects of different operating parameters, specifically pH, dye concentration, TiO2/XG concentration, H2O2 concentration, and contact time, were also investigated in a batch photocatalytic reactor. The immobilized TiO2/XG catalyst showed a slight adsorption degradation efficiency and then improved the RR and RT dye degradation activity (92.5 and 90.8%

Pavement crack and pothole identification are important tasks in transportation maintenance and road safety. This study offers a novel technique for automatic asphalt pavement crack and pothole detection which is based on image processing. Different types of cracks (transverse, longitudinal, alligator-type, and potholes) can be identified with such techniques. The goal of this research is to evaluate road surface damage by extracting cracks and potholes, categorizing them from images and videos, and comparing the manual and the automated methods. The proposed method was tested on 50 images. The results obtained from image processing showed that the proposed method can detect cracks and potholes and identify their severity levels wit

Moisture-induced damage is a serious problem that severely impairs asphaltic pavement and affects road serviceability. This study examined numerous variables in asphalt concrete mixtures to assess their impact on moisture damage resistance. Mix design parameters such as the asphalt content (AC) and aggregate passing sieve No. 4 (PNo. 4) were considered as variables during this study. Additionally, hydrated lime (HL) was utilized as a partial substitute for limestone dust (LS) filler at 1.5% by weight of the aggregate in asphalt concrete mixtures for the surface layer. This study also investigated the potential enhancement of traditional asphalt binders and mixtures by adding nano-additives, specifically nano-silica oxide (NS) and na

Reservoir permeability plays a crucial role in characterizing reservoirs and predicting the present and future production of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Data logging is a good tool for assessing the entire oil well section's continuous permeability curve. Nuclear magnetic resonance logging measurements are minimally influenced by lithology and offer significant benefits in interpreting permeability. The Schlumberger-Doll-Research model utilizes nuclear magnetic resonance logging, which accurately estimates permeability values. The approach of this investigation is to apply artificial neural networks and core data to predict permeability in wells without a nuclear magnetic resonance log. The Schlumberger-Doll-Research permeability is use

The construction of highly safe and durable buildings that can bear accident damage risks including fire, earthquake, impact, and more, can be considered to be the most important goal in civil engineering technology. An experimental investigation was prepared to study the influence of adding various percentages 0%, 1.0%, and 1.5% of micro steel fiber volume fraction (Vf) to reactive powder concrete (RPC)—whose properties are compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, and absorbed energy—after the exposure to fire flame of various burning temperatures 300, 400, and 500 °C using gradual-, foam-, and sudden-cooling methods. The outcomes of this research proved that the maximum reduction in mechanical prop

Different additives are used in drilling fluids when the demanded properties cannot be gotten with clays. Drilling muds needs several additives and materials to give good characteristics. There are local alternatives more suitable for enhancing the rheology and filtration of drilling fluids. An experimental work had been conducted to assess the suitability of using potato starch to enhance rheological properties and filtration in drilling mud. This study investigated the potato starch as a viscosifier and fluid losses agent in drilling fluid. Results from this study proved that rheological properties of potato starch mud increased when pH of drilling fluid is increased.  Potato starch could be used to enhance gel strength at low pH

Hard-grade asphalt binders, such as AC 20–30, offer excellent resistance to permanent deformation but are inherently brittle, making them highly susceptible to fatigue and low-temperature cracking. While polymer modification addresses these issues, virgin polymers remain expensive. Despite the growing interest in recycled plastics, the rheological impact of complex waste streams, specifically polyvinyl chloride (PVC) derived from flex banners containing plasticizers, on excessively stiff binders within the complete Superpave Performance Grading (PG) framework remains critically underexplored. This study introduces a novel valorization approach by utilizing solvent-extracted flex banner waste (WPVC) as a dual-action modifier. It leverages

    Terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) are 3D imaging systems that provide the most powerful 3D representation and practical solutions for various applications. Hence this is due to effective range measurements, 3D point cloud reliability, and rapid acquisition performance. Stonex X300 TOF scanner delivered better certainty in far-range than in close-range measurements due to the high noise level inherent within the data delivered from Time of Flight (TOF) scanning sensors. However, if these errors are manipulated properly using a valid calibration model, more accurate products can be obtained even from very close-range measurements. Therefore, to fill this gap, this research presents a user-oriented target-based calibration routi