Al-Nahrain Journal for Engineering Sciences

In this study, both empirical and simulation
approaches were used to estimate capacity of U-turn
movement at median openings of divided arterials.
The empirical approach using regression analysis was
adopted to estimate the best form of the predictive
equation for the U-turn capacity and investigate the
effect of different relevant factors that might affect the
estimated capacity. Simulation approach was used
also to calculate capacity on the basis of the U-SIM
model; this model represents the traffic performance
at U-turn median openings and calculates the number
of turning vehicles with respect to a different
conflicting traffic stream. The results of both
approaches were compared and presented in this
study. A linear model was also recommended as a
relationship between the average total delay of the Uturning
vehicles and the conflicting traffic flow.

A finite element method of analysis is used to
study the strength and behavior of prestressed
concrete members under short-term and sustained
load conditions. The degenerated assumed strain
eight-node shell finite element is used with each
node having five degrees of freedom. Material
nonlinearity has been included in the analysis.
Concrete is considered as an elastic-plastic
material in compression with strain hardening.
prestressing tendons are modeled by a multi-linear
five branches stress-strain relationship. The
layered approach is used to represent the concrete
whereas the prestressing tendons are modeled as
axial members embedded within the concrete
elements.
A computer program is developed and used for
the analysis of prestressed concrete members
having arbitrary tendon layout in either
pretensioned or post-tensioned tendons. The
tendon layout is specified and the loading due to
prestressing is numerically calculated using the
computer program. The validity of the proposed
model for embedded bar representation of the
prestressing tendons and the developed method of
prestressing force inclusion into the entire member
is demonstrated. The capabilities of the computer
program resulting from the present developments
are verified by analyzing experimentally tested
prestressed concrete slabs. The computed results
are compared with the available experimental
data. The comparison verified the accuracy and
adequacy of the method and models

The investigation described herein deals with
a theoretical study of the flexural behavior of
simply supported composite beams consisting
of precast prestressed concrete prisms as
tension reinforcement in reinforced concrete,
by developing a non-linear three-dimensional
finite element model.
Eight-node isoparametric brick elements with
and without smeared steel reinforcement are
used to model the reinforced concrete
medium and the precast concrete prism
respectively, using the corresponding material
properties and considering the appropriate
tensile cracking and compressive crushing
phenomena for each , while a two-node threedimensional
axial element capable of plastic
post-yield deformation is used for modeling
the prestressing steel strands. Perfect bond is
assumed for all concrete-concrete and steelconcrete
contact surfaces.
with its qualified brick and axial elements is
used to predict the load-deflection behavior of
four typical simply supported beams using
such composite system and varying in crosssectional
whole dimensions and areas of
precast prisms, prestressing strands and
nonprestressed rebars. That behavior is
compared with behavior of four previously
tested corresponding specimens to verify the
accuracy of the finite element model in the
linear and post-cracking stages.
A parametric study comprizing effects of the
relative eccentricity of the prestressing
strands and the geometric state of precast
prestressed prisms on flexural behavior of
this composite system is preformed to
compute these effects on stiffness and
ultimate resistance proving their major role
after cracking which depends on the relative
quantities of precast prisms and prestressing
strands.
Accurate results of the present finite element
model has proved its effectiveness and
reliability in the analysis of such composite
systems, hence giving motive to widen its
application in that field.

Currently, there is a strong demand for efficient seawater desalination plants, which can meet the tougher
environment regulation and energy saving requirements. From this standpoint the present work was undertaken
to include the proposed schemes for repowering and modification of grid connected Thermo-Compressor Multi
Effect Distillation (TC-MED) plants. The Modified Solar Distillation Plant (MSDP) during sunny periods may
be applied to full cogeneration mode of operation with feeding the surplus electricity into Electrical Power Grid
(EPG). To investigate the potential effect of the proposed schemes a computational models have been developed
and implemented on simulation programs. The study result shows the effectiveness of proposed schemes. For the
case study (MSDP with Low backpressure Turbine (LT) and annual share of solar thermal power generation 22.5
%) the economical effect amounts 216.8 ton/year for each MW design thermal power consumption of TC-MED
and the corresponding decrease in MSDP exhaust gases emission (carbon dioxides (CO2) 660 ton/year.MW ,
nitrogen oxides (NOx) 286.3 kg/year.MW). Moreover implementation of MSDP-LT scheme for repowering and
modification of conventional six effects TC-MED plant will increase the above sited environmental and thermal
effectiveness by 72.5 % due to the 24989.8 ton/year.MW of annual solar distilled water production besides
boosting 723.9MW.hr/year.MW of solar electricity in EPG

In view of importance the cutting time, it is
considered one of the most important factors in
different machining processes where it affects
production time, cycle time, and product cost
consequently. This research aims to build up a
system for computing cutting time in turning
operations from AutoCAD drawings. The
proposed system has been built using Visual
Basic programming language and interfacing it
with AutoCAD by Visual Basic for Application
(VBA) Technique. The system is able to
compute cutting time from the drawings
according to the color of each solid entity; these
colors were defined previously in the system.
They are related to the type of turning
operation (external, internal, and facing
turning operations) as well as the rough and
finish machining operations. The system was
examined with two models, and it was accurate
and efficient. It is possible consideration the
proposed system step toward the integration
between CAPP/CAM systems.

In this work, a suggested analytical solution for nonlinear
dynamic analysis of (fiber-reinforced) composite
laminated thick plate is developed by using first-order
shear deformation theory (FSDT).
A computer program was built for this purpose for antisymmetric
cross-ply and angle-ply, simply supported thick
laminated plate and the developed equations are solved by
using (MATLAB V.7) program. The finite-element
solution is also adopted using (ANSYS V.8) package, to
confirm the analytical results.
The results presented show the effect of plate
thickness-to-side ratio (h/a), aspect ratio (a/b), number of
layers (N), the degree of orthotropic ratio (E1/E2), fiber
orientation, boundary conditions, lamination scheme, and
the effect of shear defo

This paper suggests a simple system to study the
hydrodynamics in a bubble column reactor and
measuring gas-liquid specific interfacial area a,
individual mass transfer coefficient kL, gas holdup
G, flow regime, bubble size distribution,
coalescence of bubbles, and bubble rising velocity
for a single bubble by using image processing
techniques. The images were taken by a digital
camera and then analyzed with MATLAB 2008 to
extract the required data of design parameters for
the bubble columns. Experiments of bubble
column of (0.081m diameter and 1.03 m height)
were carried out with air-water. Gas velocity UG
is varied from (0.22×10-4 -0.22×10-3) m/s. This
range of values of UG allows the study the
homogeneous flow regimes. To study the flow
regime in bubble column the gas velocity changes
from (0.00967-0.131521 m/s), afford to study and
select the Homogeneous, Transition and
Heterogeneous regimes. Transition velocity from
bubbly to churn turbulent flow for (air-water)
system, was about 0.148982 m/s.

Bifunctional Pt/HZSM-5 and Pt/HMOR
catalysts were prepared and applied to the
isomerization of n-Hexane. Catalysts
containing 0.3wt% Pt on both catalysts with
potentially high acidity were prepared by
impregnation method. The tested catalysts
show that optimum selectivity with maximal
isomer yield was obtained for Pt/HZSM-5
catalysts. The nanoparticles were characterized
by inductively coupled Plasma (ICP), X-Ray
Diffraction (XRD), BET Surface Area, and
Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).
TEM was revealed uniformly dispersed
platinum particles on the substrate with
average particle size ranging from ~6.893 to
8.847nm. It was demonstrated that the loading
content and particle size of the nanoparticles
deposited on zeolites could be tuned by
changing the weight of precursor and the
conditions of loading.

The segmentation of objects whose colorcomposition
is not trivial represents a difficult
task. In this work we propose a fuzzy algorithm
application for the segmentation of such
objects. It is chosen; by the characteristics that
it represents the face segmentation. A priori
knowledge about spectral information for
certain face skin region classes is used in order
to classify image in fuzzy logic classification
procedure.
The basic idea was to perform the classification
procedure first in the
supervised and then in fuzzy logic manner.
Some information, needed for membership
function definition, was taken from supervised
maximum likelihood classification. The system
uses three membership functions which are
taken as Gaussian distribution curve. For real
time needs, the system is implemented on an
FPGA.

The enormous growth of public mobile
communications and the tendency to provide
similar wireless services in indoor environment
reacts on the activities in the area of wideband
wireless local access, and Wireless Local Area
Networks (WLAN) architectures and protocols.
The IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard has been
developed to provide high bandwidth to mobile
users in a short-range indoor environment.
Apart from mobility, it should provide some
QoS guarantees, for certain set of services. In this paper, wireless computer network
was constructed and analyzed according to
standard IEEE 802.11b with its two channel
rates 1Mbps and 11Mbps using OPNET IT
Guru Simulator. The physical layer at the
radio-interface supports three different coding
techniques: Frequency Hopping Spread
Spectrum (FHSS), Direct Sequence Spread
Spectrum (DSSS) and Infrared (IR). The
present model considers DSSS coding.
The system utilizes the behavior of the IEEE
802.11b WLAN within single Basic Service Set
(BSS). The BSS consists of 5-20 stations, which
is a reasonable size of the WLAN. Each station
performs access to the network using the
Distributed Coordination Functionality only.
The observed performance measures are
defined as follows:
- Throughput is the average number of
successfully transmitted bits per second.
- Delay is defined to be the elapsed time
between the moments of packet arrival at the
station queue and positive acknowledgment
reception for the corresponding frame,
averaged over all successfully transmitted
frames.
It is concluded that, the simulation s results
show that the model performs as expected and
demonstrates the performance of different
traffic types under different network
configurations for the selected workload.

One of the most exciting areas in
telecommunications and networking is wireless
technology. The rapid growth of mobile telephone uses
various satellite services. So, the present work deals
with high data stream applications of Digital Video
Broadcasting (DVB), which takes an important place
in the studies and development researches due to its
direct contacts on the human daily life. In this design
the focusing is on the modern types of DVB where
modified module of the Terrestrial DVB for Handheld
terminals (DVB-H) is used and it was simulated to
perform the physical layer of the designed system.
Different modes of DVB-H with high bit rate of
Orthogonal Frequency Division multiplexing (OFDM)
and high number of sub-carriers are considered to
show the effect of Coded Orthogonal Frequency
Division multiplexing (COFDM) on the system SNR
using the convolutional encoding. The modes are
tested to show the characteristics of each type
involving BER calculation. The obtained results show
the effect of OFDM in the designed system by
evaluating it using AWGN and mobile multipath
channels. These demonstrate the effective of OFDM
over single carrier systems where the complexity and
cost of implementation are both increaseed by
increasing number of carrier. The elimination of ISI is
achieved using efficient coding techniques with small
guard time. The 4k mode shows good performance in
mobile reception, providing satisfactory and
reasonable receiver cost/complexity. The Peak Signal
to Noise Ratio (PSNR) measurement of the
reconstructed received image pixels provides more
mentality and good comparing method than the BER
measuring. The obtained results are compared
between the PSNR of each reconstructed images for
different modes with the corresponding transmitting
SNR.

The mobile electron of Phthalocyanine can
serve as current carries and provide the basis for
semiconductor properties and to increase the
current carries by substituting with Copper metal.
The modes of vibration recorded for CuPc were
(165) with vibrational frequencies recorded in the
region (15- 3080)cm-1,intensity and symmetry for
each mode were interpreted on the basis of using
HyperChem 6.0 semi-empirical molecular orbital
of self consistent field of MNDO method
(Modified Neglected of Differential Overlap) of
parameterization PM3 involving a quantum
mechanical semi-empirical Hamiltonian with
restricted and unrestricted Hartree-Fock
approximation. The high occupied molecular
orbital (HOMO) and low unoccupied molecular
orbital (LUMO) were (-4.986 and -2.222)eV
respectively. The energy gap calculation ( E) was
(2.764) eV, the ionization potential (I.P.) was
(4.986) eV and electron affinity (E.A.) was
(2.222)eV . Other characteristic such as dipole
moment, the charge density and electrostatic
potential were plotted with a contour diagram,
using both two and three dimensions. The results
suggest that CuPc has anomalous behavior than
metal-free phthalocyanine H2Pc. Such behavior
was ascribed to the bonding nature of the central
Cu ion differing from that of other metal
derivatives. We can suggest that CuPc has
attracted much attention as a potential candidate
for device applications.

Cardiovascular system is primarily considered as the
human body's transport system. Oxygen, carbon dioxide,
nutrients and other vital substances to the various
tissues of human body are carried by the blood which
circulates in a closed circulation. The cardiovascular
system has been comprised of a combination of several
basic compartments, which are structurally connected to
and functionally interact with each other.
Engineering modeling of such important system has
become a useful tool to diagnose the cardiovascular
diseases and recommend the appropriate way of their
medical treatment. This paper presents a quantified
model describing the relationship between the input and
output variables of the hemodynamic regulation of the
system through implementing a set of first order
differential equations that governing this performance
and describing its parameters such as pressures,
volumes and flows in a closed-loop lumped system.
Construction of this model was based on the interaction
between the pulsating heart and the vascular
circulations of the system through mapping the
physiological parameters to the electrical analog
elements (resistor, capacitor and inductor and diode)
depending upon the close correspondence between the
electrical circuits and the cardiovascular system in order
to obtain a reasonable investigation for the behavior of
the system in normal and pathophysiological conditions.

This paper presents a robust algorithm for ear
identification based on geometrical features of
the ear and Kohnen Self Organization Maps
(SOM). Using ears in identifying people has
been interesting at least 100 years. The
researches still discuss if the ears are unique or
unique enough to be used as biometrics. Ear
shape applications are not commonly used, yet,
but the area is interesting especially in crime
investigation. In this paper we present the
basics of using ear as biometric for person
identification and authentication. High
resolution ear images are taken by high
resolution digital camera. Six images have been
taken for twenty three persons. Four
geometrical distances were calculated for each
image. These geometrical distances are used as
an input to the unsupervised Kohonen self
organization maps. The accuracy of
identification were found to be equal to 98%,
for the proposed system .We conclude that that
the proposed model gives faster and more
accurate identification of persons based on the
ear biometrics and it works as promising tool
for person identification of persons from the
image of their ear for criminal investigation
purposes.

At a given operating pressure and in a given
apparatus, concentration polarization results
in an increase in the effective osmotic
pressure of the feed solution on the
membrane surface, a consequent decrease in
the effective pressure ( P ) for fluid flow
across the membrane, and progressive
changes in the mass transfer coefficient,
product rate, and solute separation along the
length of the membrane in the direction of
feed flow. The problem then is to predict the
effect of concentration polarization on solute
separation and on predict rate, under
specified experimental condition. In the
present work, the reverse osmosis
experiments were conducted in a spiral
wound model to get separation data using a
NaCl-water system up to 2500 ppm and
cellulose acetate membrane.
The purpose of this paper is to predict
and analyze the concentration polarization
using a combined film theory model and
empirical correlation. Therefore, the results
of the experiments show that the
concentration polarization affected when
using different models.