Engineering and Technology Journal

The step-up converters are widespread use in many applications, including
powered vehicles, photovoltaic systems, continuous power supplies, and fuel cell
systems. The reliability, quality, maintainability, and reduction in size are the
important requirements in the energy conversion process. Interleaving method is
one of advisable solution for heavy-performance applications, its harmonious in
circuit design by paralleling two or more identical converters. This paper
investigates the comparison performance of a two-phase interleaved boost
converter with the traditional boost converter. The investigation of validation
performance was introduced through steady-state analysis and operation. The
operation modes and mathematical analysis are presented. The interleaved boost
converter improves low-voltage stress across the switches, low-input current
ripple also improving the efficiency compared with a traditional boost converter.
To validate the performance in terms of input and output ripple and values, the
two converters were tested using MATLAB/SIMULINK. The results supported the
mathematical analysis. The cancelation of ripple in input and output voltage is
significantly detected. The ripple amplitude is reducing in IBC comparing with a
traditional boost converter, and the ripple frequency is doubled. This tends to
reduce output filter losses, and size.

Simulation of metal forming processes using the Finite Element Method (FEM) is a well-established procedure, being nowadays possible to develop alternative approaches, such as inverse methodologies, in solving complex problems. This study investigated the effect of orientation and pre-tension on stresses distribution numerically by software ANSYS 19 using the finite element method. The pre-tension is 55% from total strained in each rolling direction. The results show that the orientation has a significant effect on stresses distribution and stress value before and after pre-tension 55%. Although there is a regular distribution of stresses in three direction, but there is significant difference in the values of stresses in each of (0, 45, 90) degrees. The highest value of rolling direction. The pre-tension has a greater impact on stresses distribution and stress value. Although, there is a regular distribution of stresses in blank before and after pre-tension, but there is significant difference in the values. Where in 0 degree on rolling direction the stresses increased by 31.7% from their values before pre-tension, while in 45 degrees on rolling direction the stresses increased by 35.6% and in 90 degrees on rolling direction the stresses increased by 23.6% from their values before pre-tension.

This work aims preparation of Ni-based nanocomposite coating by electroless deposition method onto stainless steel (316L) substrate, the present work will compare the effects of incorporation of ZrO2 nanoparticles at different percentages (1.25 wt %, 2.25 wt %, and 4.25 wt %) Ni-based electroless deposition coating of the bath nanocomposite on the phase structure, microhardness, and corrosion resistance is studied. Where the structure and chemical composition of nanocomposite coatings were studied by using (X-ray), (SEM) and (EDS). of Ni - ZrO2 nanocomposite coating exhibits much-increased microhardness and remarkably improved corrosion resistance.

Novel techniques to enhance thermal performance using a helical coil
receiver tube and Nano-fluid materials are presented in this paper. Two
different applied techniques to enhance thermal performance are used as a
new application on parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC). In the present
work, PTSC has been fabricated using Dioxide Silicon SiO2 with an
average particle size of 40nm by taking volume fraction of SiO2 0.1, 0.2
and 0.3%. Distilled water based Nano-fluid as a working fluid and a
helical coil receiver tube were used in this paper. Varying the flow rate of
Nano-fluids 100,150 and 200l/h are used, respectively. A solar tracking
mechanism experimentally has been used with the PTSC. As per ASHRAE
standard, the experimental results showed that at volume fraction 0.3 %
and flow rate of 200 l/h, the highest increase in the energy absorbed factor
FR(τα) was 14.6 % and energy removal factor FRUL was 29.4 %
compared with distilled water. The changes in FR(τα) vary from 11.8% to
14.6% while in FRUL, they vary from 20.5% to 29.4% as compared with
the distilled water case. The maximum efficiency was about 76.6 % as the
heat loss parameter [(Ti–Ta)/GT] =0 at a volume fraction of 0.3 % and the
flow rate of 200 l/h.

The study deals with the effect of using Slurry infiltrated fiber concrete
(SIFCON) with the reinforced concrete beams to explore its enhancement
to the flexural capacity. The experimental work consists of the casting of
six beams, two beams were fully cast by conventional concrete (CC) and
SIFCON, as references. While the remaining was made by contributing a
layer of SIFCON diverse in-depth and position, towards complete the
overall depths of the built-up beam with conventional concrete CC. Also,
an investigation was done through the control specimens testing about the
mechanical properties of SIFCON. The results showed a stiffer behavior
with a significant increase in load-carrying capacity when SIFCON used
in tension zones. Otherwise high ductility and energy dissipation appeared
when SIFCON placed in compression zones with a slight increment in
ultimate load. The high volumetric ratio of steel fibers enabled SIFCON to
magnificent tensile properties.

Polymer-based nanocomposites exhibit various optical virtues
such as a high refractive index (RI), the dispersion index (Abbe
number (νd)) and visible light transmittance (T %) about 95-99%.
Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) is suggested as a good
candidate to rise the RI and maintain high transparency when it is
integrated with Poly(methyl methacrylate) polymer PMMA
because TiO2 NPs have a high RI (2.45 and 2.7 for anatase and
rutile phase, respectively). The ocular performance was evaluated
by modulation transfer function (MTF) and image simulation. The
used criteria show that the best visual performance is obtained
when TiO2-PMMA-CL of 0.1 wt/volume of TiO2 NPs is used (P <
0.0001) which reduced the generated spherical and chromatic
aberrations inside the eye.

The capability to rapidly execute the power flow (PF) calculations permit
engineers in assured with stay bigger assured within the dependability,
protection, and economical operation of their system within the case of
planned or unplanned instrumentality failures. The purpose of this work is
to investigate the use of FPGA characteristics to speed up power flow
computing time for the on-line monitoring system of a power system. The
work comprises which is the development of the Power flow program
using the Fast-decoupled method based on FPGA (Field Programmable
Gate Array), and LABVIEW (graphical programming environment). The
program delivered very satisfactory results to solve a 30-bus test system.
These findings suggest that in general that differences between the
proposed work and the conventional fast decoupled method are
satisfactory. As for the execution time, because the FPGA uses parallel
solutions, the performance of the proposed method is faster. Also, the
engagement of the FPGA and the LabVIEW program presented

This paper investigates the impact of the fly Ash addition on the
Geotechnical properties of soft soil as well as chooses the optimum
percentage added of fly ash. To understand the behavior of fly ash mixed
with soil, a number of laboratory experiments testing conducted on clayey
soil-fly ash mixture in several percentages (5,10,15,20,25, and 30%) as
Atterberg test, Specific gravity test, compaction test, California Bearing
Ratio (C.B.R) Test, Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) Test,
Consolidation Test. Test results indicate rising in plastic limit and liquid
limit as fly ash adding. Specific gravity decreased essentially by adding
fly ash. Whereas there was falling on the Dry unit weight value with the
contract to the decreasing in the water content. The CBR and UCS values
were increased with increasing fly ash content. 20% was the optimum fly
Ash content. This study also benefits the effective use of fly ash and thus a
cost-effective method for improving the soil properties.

Robot Vision is one of the most important applications in Image
processing. Visual interaction with the environment is a much better way
for the robot to gather information and react more intelligently to the
variations of the parameters in that environment. A common example of an
application that depends on robot vision is that of Pick-And-Place objects
by a robotic arm. This work presents a method for identifying an object in
a scene and determines its orientation. The method presented enables the
robot to choose the best-suited pair of points on the object at which the
two-finger gripper can successfully pick the object. The scene is taken by a
camera attached to the arm’s end effector which gives 2D images for
analysis. The edge detection operation was used to extract a 2D edge
image for all the objects in the scene to reduce the time needed for
processing. The methods proposed showed accurate object identification
which enabled the robotic to successfully identify and pick an

In the last years, many types of research have introduced different methods
and techniques for a correct and reliable image retrieval system. The goal
of this paper is a comparison study between two different methods which
are the Grey level co-occurrence matrix and the Hu invariants moments,
and this study is done by building up an image retrieval system employing
each method separately and comparing between the results. The Euclidian
distance measure is used to compute the similarity between the query
image and database images. Both systems are evaluated according to the
measures that are used in detection, description, and matching fields
which are precision, recall, and accuracy, and addition to that mean
square error (MSE) and structural similarity index (SSIM) is used. And as
it shows from the results the Grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) had
outstanding and better results from the Hu invariants moment method

Decreasing the emissions of CO2 that come from vehicle exhaust,
especially in car parking and tunnels, is so vital. CO2 emissions cause
corrosion to a reinforcement of concrete. Thus, there is a need to provide
a layer that protects the reinforcement from the reach of this harmful gas.
This work goals to investigate the efficiency of using board units from
Pozzolime concrete and pervious concrete to sequestrate CO2 from the
environment and then to convert it into calcium carbonate inside the
concrete. The units have dimensions of (200×400×40±5). All specimens
were cured in a water tank after about 48 hours after casting. Then paint
the sample from all surfaces (three layers) excluding the top surface. The
pervious concrete and Pozzolime specimens, at age of 28 days, were put in
the chamber, then the gas was supplied to the chamber with
concentrations of 15%, 25%, and 50 %, for 24 hours. The efficiency was

Trajectory planning is important in robots to achieve smooth path
planning. This paper presents the velocity kinematics analysis and
trajectory planning of a 5 DOF robotic arm. The Jacobian matrix is
utilized to analyze the velocity kinematics and the third-order polynomial
equation is used to determine the path of angle, velocity, and acceleration
of the robotic arm. A 5 DOF robotic arm used with revolute joints and the
motion of it is performed using the Arduino Mega2560 (microcontroller)
which controlling on servo motors. The results of the velocity kinematics
indicated the maximum linear velocity occurs with the z-direction and the
cubic polynomial equation satisfied a smooth path for angle and velocity
but a discontinuous path for acceleration.

An electro-hydraulic elevator is a new type of enhanced elevators that are
used in low-rise buildings that do not exceed more than three floors. In
this paper, an electro-hydraulic servo system for controlling the speed of a
hydraulic elevator prototype by using a proportional valve and PID
controller was investigated theoretically and experimentally. A three
floors elevator prototype model with 76cm height was built including
hydraulics components and electrical components. The elevator system is
fully automated using the Arduino UNO board based Data Acquisition
(DAQ) system. LabVIEW software is used to control the hydraulic elevator
system through L298 DC drive via the DAQ board. The best PID gains
was obtained experimentally. The elevator system prototype could be
emplimented for educational purposes; such as learning the
undergraduate students in the Electromechanical Engineering Department
in the University of Technology how to structuring the electro-hydraulic
elevator as well as the appropriate control strategy

In this work, the diode laser (810μm wavelength) was used for laser
transmission welding application on PMMA (polymethylmethacrylate).
The welding was done between opaqueness and transparent with thickness
2 mm and 2.57 mm, respectively. The effects of different process
parameters, laser speed, spot size and force with different values (5, 15, 20
mm/min), (2, 2.5, 3mm) and (2, 6, 10 N) respectively were used to study
their effect on weld width and strength. L9 Taguchi orthogonal array has
been used to design the experiments and optimize the result. The result of
the signal to noise ratio shows that, the width of welding decrease with
increasing both the welding speed and the spot size while it was increased
with increasing the force on the sample. The narrower width observed at
speed (20mm/min), spot size (3mm), and force (2N). Also, the best strength
was found at speed (15 mm/min), spot size (2.5mm), and force (10N).

The performance regarding the Speaker Identification Systems (SIS) has
enhanced because of the current developments in speech processing
methods, however, an improvement is still required with regard to textindependent
speaker identification in the Arabic language. In spite of
tremendous progress in applied technology for SIS, it is limited to English
and some other languages. This paper aims to design an efficient SIS (textindependent)
for the Arabic language. The proposed system uses speech
signal features for speaker identification purposes, and it includes two
phases: The first phase is training, in this phase a corpus of reference
database is built which will serve as a reference for comparing and
identifying the speaker for the second phase. The second phase is testing,
which searches the identification of the speaker. In this system, the
features will be extracted according to: Mel Frequency Cepstrum
Coefficient (MFCC), mathematical calculations of voice frequency and
voice fundamental frequency. Machine learning classification techniques:
K-nearest neighbors, Sequential Minimum Optimization and Logistic
Model Tree are used in the classification process. The best classification
technique is a K-nearest neighbors, where it gives higher precision 94.8%

In this study, the sunflowers oil was utilized as for producing biodiesel via
a chemical operation, which is called trans-esterification reaction. Iraqi
diesel fuel suffers from high sulfur content, which makes it one of the worst
fuels in the world. This study is an attempt to improve the fuel
specifications by reducing the sulfur content of the addition of biodiesel
fuel to diesel where this fuel is free of sulfur and has a thermal energy that
approaches to diesel.20%, 30% and 50% of Biodiesel fuel were added to
the conventional diesel. Performance tests and pollutants of a four-stroke
single-cylinder diesel engine were performed. The results indicated that
the brake thermal efficiency a decreased by (4%, 16%, and 22%) for the
B20, B30 and B50, respectively. The increase in specific fuel consumption
was (60%, 33%, and 11%) for the B50, B30, and B20 fuels, respectively
for the used fuel blends compared to neat diesel fuel. The engine exhaust
gas emissions measures manifested a decreased of CO and HC were CO
decreased by (13%), (39%) and (52%), and the HC emissions were lower
by (6.3%), (32%), and (46%) for B20, B30 and B50 respectively,
compared to diesel fuel. The reduction of exhaust gas temperature was
(7%), (14%), and (32%) for B20, B30 and B50 respectively. The NOx
emission increased with the increase in biodiesel blends ratio. For B50,
the raise was (29.5%) in comparison with diesel fuel while for B30 and
B20, the raise in the emissions of NOx was (18%) and (3%), respectively

This research investigates the behavior of Stone Matrix Asphalt mixtures
(SMA) modified with styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) polymer at four
percentages (1, 2, 3 and 4%) by weight of asphalt cement. The moisture
susceptibility and rutting were taken into consideration in this study. To
achieve the objective of this research the superpave system is conducted to
design the asphalt mixtures. The physical properties of aggregate, bitumen
and other mix materials were assessed and evaluated with the laboratory
tests. The mixtures were prepared using penetration Graded (40-50)
bitumen and a chemical named Polypropylene Fibers was used as a
stabilizing additive. Fibers have been used in SMA mixtures for two main
reasons: To increase the toughness and fracture resistance of hot mix
asphalt (HMA) and to act as a stabilizer to prevent drain down of the
asphalt binder. The laboratory tests include indirect tensile strength test,
Marshall stability and retained Marshall Stability test (RMS). For rutting
test the Roller wheel compactor is used for preparing the asphaltic
samples and Wheel tracking device is used to evaluate the rutting of
asphaltic slabs. The results showed that the SBS polymer asphalt mixture
gave better moisture sensitivity and better fracture resistance according to
the study.It is noted that indirect tensile strength ratio (TSR) increases by
93.1 % and the rut depth decreases by 32.5 % when adding 3% SBS
polymer to SMA.