Engineering and Technology Journal

In this paper, the crop water requirement was calculated using two methods; the first method is FAO-56-Penman Monteith. While the second method, is the Penman Monteith utilizing satellite image data where the Landsat 5 TM image is used in this method. The estimated ETC using these two methods was of equal value, 5.20 mm/sec. This verifies the use of this satellite image for estimation of ETC. The agricultural situation and water demand of each canal and the corresponding cultivated area were evaluated. This evaluation shows that Al-Hussainiyah Canal has the highest value of discharge (12.43 m3/sec) with maximum cultivated area (89.82 km2). The Al-ajmea Canal has the lowest discharge rate of (0.25 m3/sec), with minimum cultivated area of (0.39 km2). These canals operate under half of their design discharge and the cultivated area for this project distributed mainly along the main canals. Evaluation of the water use efficiency (WUE) of the project shows that the maximum value of the estimated WUE was at Al-kamalea canal 7.9 km2/m3/sec. While the minimum value was at Al-ajmea canal 1.6 km2/m3/sec. The average WUE for the area of study was 7.2 km2/m3/sec, which is equal to the WUE of Al-Huassainiyah Canal. It has been proven that the Landsat 5 TM image can be effectively used in monitoring irrigation network, especially when considering large areas. It can be used for estimating and evaluating the water consumption and the water use efficiency of the irrigation projects in Iraq.

Diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) epoxy resin was cured with hardeners aliphatic amine triethylenetetramine (TETA). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique was utilized to study the kinetics of cure of (DGEBA)-(TETA) system, diverse hardener/resin ratios were studied, (5, 13and 20) phr. Isothermal as well as dynamic experiments were carried out of the above mentioned DGEBA/TETA system with three hardener/resin ratios, and cure kinetics were investigated at four temperatures (30, 45, 60 and 80) °C using (DSC) technique. The process of isothermal cure was simulated by the diffusion model (modified Kamal’s model and four-parameter autocatalytic model. The obtained outcomes are in good agreement with the experimental results in the early and late cure stages. The events declare that complete cure at 80 °C attains at the stoichiometric ratio (13 phr).

Loss of the lower limb can cause loss of mobility. At all places and at all times, efforts have always been made to make up for such a loss. In this work polymer composite materials had been used to manufacture prosthetic foot. Polymer composite materials PMMA:SR/PUR reinforced by carbon fibers (CF) were prepared as suitable material for prosthetic foot then, tensile characteristics were measured and determined. Numerical work included Finite element method (ANSYS-15) was used to analyze and evaluate deformation, stress and strain characteristics of a new designed prosthetic foot, which was treated as three-dimensional structure composite polymer material. The experimental and theoretical results were improved that polymer composite material can be used for this application

An attempt has been made during the present study to understand the behavior of reinforced concrete structures considering soil structure interaction. A multistoried frame building subjected to seismic forces are modeled and analyzed through the finite elements software program (SAP 2000 V14) which are primarily designed according to ACI 318M-11) and ASCE 7-10 Code. Both static and dynamic analysis methods are used, which may be linear and nonlinear. Recorded ground motions are used in nonlinear dynamic (time history) analysis. Analyses of frames are carried out to find the lateral displacements, drift ratios, and time period of free vibration motion of structural systems. The study reveals that soil flexibility has significant effect on the response of structures. Soil flexibility led to increase the storey drift and lateral displacement. In addition, it led to increase in neutral lateral time period of structure vibration of frame buildings especially, with soft soil stiffness. The present study also, presents a methodology to protect the structure against earthquake excitation by using rubber isolators, where decreases in the natural frequency of structure building have been observed and the presence of rubber at a location of each column led to decrease the value of axial force and shear base stress as compared with fixed-base case.

The main objectives of this study were investigating the possibility of producing lightweight self - Compacting concrete (LWSCC) by using artificial coarse lightweight aggregate manufactured by burning locally available Attapulgite clay, estimating the optimum dosage of high reactivity Attapulgite (HRA) and studying its effects on fresh and hardened properties of LWSCC when using it as a partial replacement by weight of cement. Tests results showed that, It is possible to produce (LWSCC) by using Attapulgite as artificial coarse (LWA) and (HRA). The optimum content for (HRA) used in this study was 10 %, the percentages of increment in compressive strength and splitting tensile strength with 10% (HRA) relative to reference mix were (10.0%, 12.1%, 11.1% and 12.4%) and ( 12.0%, 18.2%, 16.6% and 16.2%) for 7, 28, 56 and 90 days respectively. The values of the calculated equilibrium density ranged between (1788 and 1829) kg/m3

Usually chlorine added ratio during the treatment process is directly proportional to the microorganisms in water, so the use of any technique that will lead to reducing the amount of microorganisms in the water will lead to use of low concentrations of chlorine. Therefore, this study aimed to using commercial activated carbon to adsorb the rate of microorganisms such as coliform bacteria. The use of continuous adsorption system (fluidize bed) under different operating conditions and in field conditions. The results showed that the best percentage removal of coliform bacteria was 91.3% within 24 hours under the operational condition bed depth 15 cm, filtration rate 15.3 m³/m²/h and particle size 1 mm, removal rates gradually decreased with time until it reached 15% after 168 hours and went to zero after 192 hours. The results that obtained in this study proved the feasibility of the use of commercial activated carbon to remove coliform bacteria from water

Reinforced pavement layers have been gaining popularity in the field of civil engineering due to their highly versatile and flexible nature. With the advent of geosynthetics in civil engineering, reinforced earth technique has taken a new turn in its era. The practice of reinforced earth technique became easy and simple with geosynthetics. The research requirements are providing the materials and manufacturing of the loading machine (loading test apparatus). Materials include soil (bentonite), granular sub base, sand, and geogrid. The testing program consists of preparing of 6 models that represent layers beneath flexible pavement layers (subgrade and sub base layers). The model dimensions are 800*800*800 mm, subgrade layer is 400 mm thick and sub base layer 300 mm thick. The model tests include using geogrid reinforcement at the interface of the subgrade and sub base layer and in the center of sub base layer.
It was concluded that a geo-grid reinforced soil is stronger and stiffer and gives more strength than the equivalent soil without geo-grid reinforcement. Geo-grids provide improved aggregate interlock in stabilizing road infrastructure through sub base restraint and base reinforcement applications, Geo-grid reinforcement provided between the sub base course and subgrade soil carries the shear stress induced by vehicular loads and thus it reduces the load transferred to the subgrade and the volume changes induced by swelling of the subgrade soil. The load carrying capacity of the pavement system is significantly increased for geogrid reinforced sub base stretch compared to unreinforced sub base layer on expansive soil subgrade. Comparison of the results of the model without geogrid reinforcement with other models reveals that there is an increase in the bearing capacity of model that includes geogrid reinforcement at the interface of subgrade by about 40%; and 20% for the model that consists of geogrid reinforcement in the center of sub base layer.

Oil projects in the province of Basrah are widely spread and remarkably increasing as they are considered to be of a significant impact on the environment of this region in elements of air, water and soil. This is due to the presence of toxic elements in the air as a result of fuel, or waste thrown into the water. So, this research addresses to study the amount of the pollutants concentration that are discharged by Shuaiba refinery which is located in Basrah province and works for about 24 hours daily. To assess the impact of the refinery on the river, 36 water samples were collected for six months period (from December, 2014 - May, 2015) as well as field measurements and laboratory analyses in order to get appropriate solutions and proposals as much as possible. 180 field measurements have been achieved include electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, water temperature, and hydrogen ion concentration (pH). In addition, 342 water samples have been prepared to measure several physical and chemical characteristics (NH3, NH4, NO2, NO3, SO4, Cl and Ca, oil and grease, and total hardness TH) inside and outside Shuaiba refinery in the study area. Measurements of these pollutant concentrations were carried out on six sampling sites; one inside the wastewater collection tanks of the refinery and the remained five sites along the Shatt Al-Basrah River.
The locations of these sites were selected according to the land use map of Landsat 8 data 2015 and the coordinates of each sample location was measured precisely by GPS. The analysis, pollutants concentration maps and their locations on the satellite image were carried out using Arc GIS 10.3 and ERDAS 2013 software. The field and laboratory test results of water samples indicated high pollutants concentrations during December, April and May months, while there were a decreased pollutants concentration particularly during the month of March. It is noticed the high reflectivity values in areas that contain contaminants (turbidity) or oily spots with a purity of more sites. The calculations of water

This investigation aims at finding the effective length of geogrid reinforcement layers under circular footing. For this purpose xperimental models were used. The effect of relative density of the sand and the depth of the footing on the effective length of geogrid reinforcement layer was studied. Also the effect of the change in the length of reinforcement layers on the ultimate bearing capacity was investigated. The results show that the length of reinforcement layers to diameter ratio of circular footing increased with decreasing relative density of the sand and is not affected by the change of the depth to diameter ratio of circular footing

In this research, a laminate composite has been prepared, using unsaturated polyester resin (UP) as a matrix reinforced with Kevlar fibers in different number of layers, glass fibers were added to the optimum product, by replacing one of the layers of Kevlar Fibers with a layer of Glass Fibers. Hand Lay-up method was used to prepare the test samples. To evaluate the composite material properties, tensile, hardness, impact, optical microscope tests were done.
The results of composite made of polyester reinforced with Kevlar Fibers show that the mechanical properties (Tensile strength, Modulus of elasticity, Hardness, Impact strength) increase with increasing the number of reinforced layers.
The best experimental values of the mechanical properties (Tensile strength, Modulus of elasticity, Hardness, Impact strength) were (190 MPa, 1.72 GPa, 79.25, and 68.75KJ/m2) respectively, for composite with three layers of Kevlar Fibers and then followed by composite with the sequence of layers (kevlar-glass-kevlar) and its mechanical properties (Tensile strength, Modulus of elasticity, Hardness, Impact strength) were (175.5 MPa, 1.69 GPa, 80, and 59.1 KJ/m2) respectively, Optical microscope shows well distribution of reinforced layers in composite.

In this paper, the effect of some design parameters on the kinematic characteristics (displacement, velocity, and acceleration) of the external and internal Geneva Mechanism (GM) has been considered analytically using MATLAB and numerically using Solid Works program. The parameters, such as the change of: the drive pin diameter or the width of slot or the total tolerance, the direction of motion of the pin when it enters or leaves the slot; tangent, above and below to the centerline of the slot, and the number of slots (inside or outside diameter) of the wheel, were taken into account. To compare the results, three, six, and nine slotted external and internal Geneva wheels (GWs) were used for the same crank length and constant driving angular speed. In order to remove the unwanted non-zero initial and final accelerations or jerks, two crank-rocker linkages, the first combining with external six-slot GW and the second combining with internal three-slot GW, were suggested and simulated using SolidWorks program. From that, the angular acceleration of the slotted wheel at the specified (initial and final) positions has been eliminated to zero or reduced to small value. Also, the maximum angular velocity and acceleration of the wheel joining the first linkage has been reduced to about 39.4% and 63.3%, respectively, while in the case of the wheel joining the second linkage, the maximum angular velocity and acceleration has been increased to about 279.4% and 27.4%, respectively.

This research studies the behavior of reactive powder concrete (RPC) circular short columns with and without steel fibers of different types, as well as change of the reinforcement kinds of lateral (hoops and spiral) and the spacing between them.
The experimental work consist study of fifteen short column specimens having an overall height of 1 m with circular cross-section of 150 mm diameter are loaded at ends with concentric loads. Six of the specimens are cast with the inclusion of steel fibers with aspect ratio of 75 (group 1), and six of other specimens are cast with the inclusion of steel fibers with aspect ratio of 100 (group 2), and the other three specimens is without steel fibers, with hybrid steel fibers and high strength concrete. The concrete mix of fiber-reinforced samples contains 1% by volume of steel fibers of variable reinforcement longitudinal and lateral (hoops and spiral reinforcement).
Experimental data for strength, failure mode, lateral, and the ductility were obtained for each test.
The work concluded that the using of steel fibers in RPC was an effective way to prevent spalling of the concrete cover and increase the ductility and the using of high ratio of longitudinal reinforcement delays the pickling of the columns and increase strength.
The ultimate load capacity of RPC columns of spiral lateral reinforcement is greater than the load of RPC columns of tied lateral reinforcement by about 1.25 to 1.35 times for the two groups

This paper proposes a novel modified space vector pulse width modulator based on Artificial Neural Network (ANN). This method overcomes the drawbacks of conventional DSP-based modulator in the z-source inverter. This generates timing signals without computations delay time, which increases the capability of using high switching frequency. Moreover, the proposed method overcomes the nonlinearity relationship between modulation index and the boosting factor during buck and boost regions. The simulation of the proposed system is fully evaluated for different operation condition. The schemes and training of the proposed neural networks are presented and examined with respect to conventional DSP-based method. Simulation results show excellent performance for both AC-side and DC-side of the Z-source inverter for different output voltages. In addition, the proposed ANN-based modulator operates very well in both buck and boost mode and overcomes the discontinuity of modulation index and the boosting factor. The voltage stress across the devices in the proposed method is less than of the conventional DSP-based method especially for high gain operation condition.

In this study five compositions of CoNiAl alloy with fixed Al content were prepaid to investigate the effect of chemical composition on the microstructure and phase volume fractions. It was found that by increasing Co the volume fraction of β phase increases and by increasing the β phase the grain size will be increased. This increase will be reflected on increasing the hardness of this alloy. Further investigations for the corrosion resistance in simulated body environment were done. It was found that phase volume fractions increased corrosion rate by increasing the volume fraction of β phase.

In this research, a study of the effect of Ta and Nb additions on the corrosion behavior and properties of Ni-Ti shape memory alloys prepared by powder metallurgy is presented. It was found that; the transformation temperatures and phase structures of the samples prepared consist of martensitic and austenitic phases at room temperature. Also, Vickers hardness values increased with increasing of Ta and Nb additions. Porosity percentages decreased with increasing of addition of Ta and Nb. Finally, the corrosion rate decreased with increasing of Ta and Nb additions

Industrial wastewater effluents especially that contain heavy metals considered a foremost problem of water pollution in the worldwide environment. Discharging this wastewater, that contains considerable heavy metals' concentrations into ground, water or streams and rivers causes deterioration of the ecological system. The present study aimed to synthesized the graphene nano sheets by electrochemical method and used for removal of lead Pb+2 and Cadmium Cd+2 ions that found in industrial wastewater. Graphene nano sheets synthetic in this study is characterized by X-ray diffraction XRD, scanning electron microscopy SEM, Raman spectroscopy and Fourier-Transformed Infrared Spectra (FT-IR). The abundant oxygen-containing functional groups on the surfaces of graphene nanosheets and strong surface complexion played an important role in (lead and cadmium ions) adsorption. Adsorption properties for (lead and cadmium ions) on graphene nanosheets were regularly investigated, including contact time, pH effect, adsorbent doses and initial concentrations for lead and cadmium solutions. The experimental data were evaluated by Langmuir, Freundlich models in order to describe the equilibrium isotherms. From the adsorption isotherms, the maximum adsorption capacities of lead ions on graphene calculated from Langmuir model were equivalent 476.19 (mg/g) at pH 6.2 and equilibrium contact time 35 min with adsorbent dose (40mg/L), and 188.679 (mg/g) at pH 5.2 and equilibrium contact time 40 min with adsorbent dose (20mg/L) for cadmium ions. The results of the present study demonstrated that graphene has respectable qualifications to removal (Pb+2&Cd+2 ions) which found in industrial wastewater as compared to other adsorbents e.g. activated carbon

This work aims at assessing the behavior of self-compacted concrete (SCC) reinforced with hybrid recycled waste fibers (RWFSCC) in two-way slabs under static loading, Waste plastic fibers (PET) and metal cans fibers and hybrid fibers with aspect ratio (12.5) have been used with volumetric percentages (0.1%, 0.25% and 0.4%) for each type of recycled fibers respectively, in addition to the reference mixture (free of fibers) for the purpose of comparison. The current study has been divided into two parts , the first part is focused on studying the effect of recycled fibers on the specified mechanical properties, namely: the compressive strength and the splitting tensile strength of the hardened SCC, The second part included the study of the behavior of concrete slabs under static loading .The results showed a slightly improvement in the compressive strength of mixtures that containing volumetric ratio (0.1%) of waste recycled fibers , also showed that the plastic fibers have improved both the splitting tensile strength ,as the ratio of the recycled fibers has increased, and the bending strength and toughness of the concrete slabs that containing the hybrid recycled fibers ,whereas the increasing of the metal recycled fibers ratio caused to reduce this increasing and to give a negative effect on the structure of SCC

The porous concrete applications and the process of production in different ways depending on the replacement of fine or coarse aggregate components of research important topics, The study dealt with production pervious concrete by depending on normal concrete by removing fine aggregate by four percentage by weight (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%), as was the work of trail mixtures of concrete for a reference mix of were depended mixture the weight [1:1.5:3] with a ratio (W/C) is equal to (0.40), which recorded the highest compressive strength of age (7) days, by the results tests show that the increased rate of removal of fine aggregate contributed to reduce the strength and density with the increase in porosity and permeability and absorption, as less density obtained is (1756.2)kg/m3 remove the fine aggregate by (100%), which gives less strength to compressive (14.28) MPa and the highest value for porosity (24.81%), as were better strength to compressive, splitting tensile, and bending are (36.77MPa, 4.28MPa, 4.4MPa), respectively to the proportion of removing fine aggregate (25%) compared to the reference mixture

This study was conducted for the purpose of monitoring changes in the marshes of southern Iraq, depend on image processing techniques for Landsat images for the period from 1990 to 2015.Landsat satellite images such as TM, ETM+, and LDCM for years 1990,2000, and 2015 in addition to set of maps were used, and then all these data were analysed and extracted the information from it by using ERDAS EMAGINE 2014 program also to extract the final maps layout the ARC GIS 10.2 program was used .Two important indices were extracted from satellite images, Transformed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (TNDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) for extract natural vegetation and water in study area. Supervised classification has been used to product three land cover maps for study area. After conducting all necessary analyses, the final results showed that the deterioration has happened largely in the waters of marshes and natural vegetation area in the period from 1990 to 2000 and then this deterioration was beginning decrease gradually and marshes began to recover from 2000 to 2015, there is increase in the surface area of waters of the marshes and natural vegetation in year 2015 than in year 2000, but this increase does not reach to the area of water and natural vegetation in year 1990

The development of the digital technology has led to expand the design Capabilities of architects, especially in the field of generating curved forms with formal complexity which was unattainable with the traditional methods of construction, thus resulting in the need to research for new methods to realize them physically, so Digital Fabrication concept has appeared in architecture and its appear in a general framework that recognizes the concept and its beginnings in the other fields and the stages it went through to reach the field of architecture, for the purpose of reducing the limits of research to the specific frame which is summarized in (the role of digital fabrication as a link between the design process modeling and the realized architectural product which is represented by the fabricating of building parts), and thorough searching of studies which took into consideration the existence of the above-mentioned three-way relationship between (designing, fabrication, and production), the research problem was derived, which states that (the lack of a comprehensive conception describing how to achieve digital fabrication and its impact in contemporary architectural production) and thus to reach the aim of the research (creating a comprehensive conceptual framework regarding how to achieve digital fabrication in the field of architecture and its impact in contemporary architectural production), and achieving this approach requires forming a theoretical framework consisting of four main units; The methods of fabricated digital design generating, digital fabrication techniques, production strategies and to clarify its impact in contemporary architectural production, and by application these main units in three universal projects then, the research puts the results and its final conclusions, which represent the most important in displaying the most important criteria that the architect must take into his consideration when adopting digital fabrication in the production of his digital designs