Engineering and Technology Journal

The Mechanical properties of hybrid composites based on epoxy resin (ER) filled with metal powders (Al) and Glass fibers (GF) have been studied. The specimens are prepared using hand lay-up techniques according to ASTM standard for different volume fractions of fiber, particles & matrix material. Glass fibers (GF) are one of the most useful filler materials in composites, its major use being the manufacture of components in the aerospace, automotive, and leisure industries. The epoxy was reinforced with GF :( metal powders) in the ratio 10%:40%, 20%:30%, 30%:20%, and 40%:10%. It was observed that in the ratio 40%:10% has the maximum (UTS), fracture strength, flexural strength, fracture toughness and hardness are shown to increase with increase volume fraction fibers when compared to unfilled epoxy

Neural networks are complex non-linear models; this characteristic enables them to be used in nonlinear system modeling and prediction applications. The estimation and prediction are important roles in the communication system. The proposed approach based on the Wavelet Neural Networks (WNNs) uses morlet as an activation functions in the hidden layer of the wavelet neural network, while the Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (RBFNNs) uses basis function that can be calculated as a Gaussian function. In this paper, a comparison between the performance of Wavelet Neural Networks and Radial Basis Function for GPS prediction is presented. The comparison results (using MATLAB programming) present that the Wavelet Neural Networks method has a great approximation ability, suitability and more stable in Global Positioning System (GPS) prediction than the Radial Basis Function Neural Networks, were highly effective predictions for accurate positioning and RMS errors were 0.05 meter after using of Wavelet Neural Networks prediction

In this work, the major impairment regarding the coverage and capacity of GSM system have been explained. This paper presents the adaptive antenna array systems as a promise technology that have the ability to overcome the mobile communication performance limitations.
The major contribution of this paper is to estimate the coverage, the blockage probability, and capacity improvement during the use of adaptive antennas in GSM base stations. MATLAB 6.5, has been used for simulation and performance improvement evaluation of capacity and coverage in GSM system.
The results show that an adaptive antenna array of eight elements has a potential to reduce outage probability, and improve coverage extension by about 280% and capacity by 40%..

Twenty soil samples were collected in the Al-Duraa Refinery Industrial District. The soil samples displayed high concentrations of Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb and Zn than the calculated worldwide mean of unpolluted soils. The geoaccumulation index indicated that the soil samples were strongly polluted with Cd and moderately to strongly polluted with Pb. The level of pollution with Ni was moderate, whereas Cr and Zn observed unpolluted to moderately pollution. Furthermore, the result of the calculated enrichment factor (4.11-227.49) indicated significant to extremely high enriched and suggesting an important role of anthropogenic pollution due to various industrial activities done by the refinery.

The principal objective of this paper is the investigate of experimental and theoretical flexural behavior reinforced height strength concrete one-way slabs strengthened or repaired with externally bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets. The experimental work includes testing of nine reinforced concrete slab specimens with dimensions (1700mmx300mmx100mm), six of these slabs were strengthened, two slabs were repaired with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips and one specimen was tested without strengthening as reference (control) slab for comparing the performance of CFRP strengthened or repaired slabs. The experimental variables considered in the test program include the location, quantity, shape and dimensions of CFRP sheets. All the reinforced concrete slab specimens were designed of the same dimensions and reinforced identically to fail in flexure. All slabs had been tested in simply supported conditions subjected to central concentrated load. The experimental results show that the ultimate loads are increased by about (8-64%) for the slabs strengthened with bonded CFRP sheets with respect to the unstrengthened reinforced concrete slab (control slab). Three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis has been used to conduct the numerical investigation of the general behavior of strengthened slabs. ANSYS (Version 13.0) computer program was used in this work. Eight-node brick elements (SOLID65) are used to represent the concrete and three dimensional shell elements (SHELL 41) are used to represent the CFRP strips in the finite element analysis model. Perfect bond between the concrete surface and the bonded CFRP sheets is assumed

Experimental investigation has been carried out to study the effect of induced vibration of a simply supported on the heat transfer process in the simultaneously developing of hydrodynamic and thermal boundary layer region of a concentric vertical annulus with uniformly heated outer cylinder and rotating solid inner cylinder. The experimental setup consists of an annulus which has a radius ratio of 0.365 and outer cylinder with a heated length 1.2 m subjected to the constant heat flux. The investigation covers Reynolds number (Re) range from 514 to 1991, Taylor number (Ta) values are 10.44×104 & 82.23×104, heat flux varied from 468 W/m2 to 920 W/m2 and frequency (Fr) values are 32 & 77 Hz. Results showed for all frequency values which that the local Nusselt number values increase as the heat flux increases when the value of frequency near the natural frequency and the value of surface radiation decrease. Correlation equations have been deduced to calculate the rate of heat transfer, represented by the average Nusselt number (Num) as a function of (Ta), (Ra) and (Fr). A comparison has been made between the present work and the previous works for temperature and local Nusselt number variations and it has given a good agreement.

Modern power systems are complex and non-linear and their operating conditions can vary over a wide range, and since neuro - fuzzy network can be used as intelligent controllers to control non-linear dynamic systems through learning, which can easily accommodate the non-linearity, time dependencies, model uncertainty and external disturbances. A Neuro-Fuzzy model system is proposed as an effective neural networks controller model to achieve the desired robust Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) for Synchronous Generator (SG) to maintain constant terminal voltage. The concerned Neuro-fuzzy controller for AVR is examined on different models of SG and loads. The results shows that the Neuro-Fuzzy -controllers have excellent responses for all SG models and loads in view point of transient response and system stability compared with optimal PID controllers tuned by practical swarm optimization. Also shows that the margins of robustness for Neuro-Fuzzy -controller are greater than PID controller.

Surfactants have been considered for enhanced oil recovery by reduced oil-water interfacial tension. This research experimentally determines the influence of surfactant concentration and formation water Salinity on oil recovery. The commercial anionic Alkyl-benzene sulphonate surfactant were used with different salinity of formation water (134.7,168.5 and187.5 g/l) respectively and with three different surfactant concentrations (10,30 and 50g/l) . Several sand pack flood experiments were conducted using medium crude oil. Experimental results showed that emulsification become better with increasing surfactant concentration and higher oil recovery. The ultimate oil recoveries at 1.1 pore volume(P.V.) are 72,76.2 and 85.1% of original oil in place(OOIP), at surfactant aqueous concentration of 10,30 And 50g/l respectively. The effect of salinity on surfactant performance is studied and the results showed that increasing of salinity reduced oil recoveries (76.2 ,60and 46%OOIP at salinity of134.7,168.5 and187.5g/l respectively).

In this present work, the behavior of AA7349 aluminum alloy under constant and cumulative creep-fatigue interaction has been studied by using an electrical system designed and built in order to investigate creep-fatigue interaction at different stress levels and temperatures. An hour glass shaped specimen of AA7349 aluminum alloy has been subjected to a constant and variable creep-fatigue tests performed under rotating bending loading and stress control at stress ratio R=-1.
The results of the creep –fatigue life have been studied by Miner rule and compared with the proposed and experimental methods. It was shown that the Miner rule and proposed model gave reasonable results and they are in a good agreement with the experimental fatigue lifetimes

Iraq's agricultural sector suffers from the salinity problem of agricultural land which reflects negatively on the production of field crops and agricultural land investment, particularly in the governorates geographically located in the sedimentary plain. The management of salinity problems facing by the agricultural sector has become crucial priorities for the Iraqi government. In this study, SWOT analysis was applied to suggest proper strategies that might be followed to fix the problem of salinity. After the internal and external factors have been identified, 17 strategies planning were developed. Internal–External Matrix (IE matrix) was used to select the appropriate type of strategy. Based on the results of Internal–External Matrix, government should consider the conservative strategies. Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) was also used in this study. By applying the QSPM, re-arrangement of the proposed strategies has been made by importance and priority. The first three suggested strategies in term of importance and priority were establishment of National Center for Agricultural Policy, investing in improved irrigation systems such sprinkler and drip irrigation and innovative agricultural technologies to control salinity are urgent

In this work a new technique is used to produce vacuum dewatered concrete. In this technique perforated PVC pipes incased in cotton cloth are used to dewater concrete from inside of concrete volume, rather than from the surface, as is the case in the conventional vacuum dewatering method. These pipes are laid in position inside concrete forms, and a vacuum pump is connected to the dewatering pipes, which is operated after casting of fresh concrete to remove the excessive water from internal portion. Properties of vacuum dewatered concrete using the new technique are investigated by a series of tests such as compressiveand flexural strength tests. Based on test results, the new technique improves concrete strength and other mechanical properties particularly at early ages. The new dewatering technique is a good alternative to the conventional vacuum dewatering technique and can have a wider range of practical applications than the conventional method.

Modern aircrafts design is tending to employ automatic control in their every part. In this paper, an autopilot is designed to control the pitch of an aircraft using both PD-like type-1 and type-2 fuzzy logic controllers. The flight system is exposed to atmospheric effects like wind speed, rain, temperature… etc, and noise from the system which affect the response. To test the effectiveness of the two controllers, three different cases are simulated; system without disturbance and system with slow and fast varying disturbances

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) has become a popular modulation method for high data rate wireless communications. In this paper, two schemes are proposed. In the first scheme the Bit Error Rate (BER) and the Packet Error Rate (PER) performances of Fast Fourier Transform-FFT based OFDM are compared with Discrete Cosine Transform DCT -based OFDM using (QPSK) and (16 QAM)as a modulation techniques over Additive White Gaussian Noise environment (AWGN) and Multipath Rayleigh Fading environment.
To improve the performance of the uncoded OFDM schemes, the second coded scheme is investigated .convolution coding is used to enhance the BER for the previous systems. The proposed systems have been tested and evaluated using MATLAB 7 package.

In this study, an attempt has been made to investigate and simulate the influence of coated layers, on the cutting force components in orthogonal turning process using AISI 1010 steel. A series of experimental and numerical tests have been done with four types of inserts including uncoated, coated tool with (TiN), (TiN /TiCN) and (TiN /Al2O3/ TiCN) using the special FEA code (DEFORM-2D). The turning tests were conducted at five different cutting speeds (45, 65, 97, 145, and 206 m/min.), while feed rate and depth of cut were kept constant at (0.2 mm/rev.) and (1.2 mm) respectively.
The results show that the minimum force is achieved when using TiN/TiCN insert compared with other inserts in all cutting conditions. The cutting force components (tangential and feed force) are decreased by (22% and 69% respectively) when the cutting speed increases from (45 to 206) m/min. The maximum relative difference between simulated and measured values is less than (17%).

The main objective of this paper is to show the ability of resistivity technique for investigating the buried utilities (their location and depth) for characterizing the surrounding subsurface soils. This study deals with implementation of 2-D electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) to detect the location of buried utilities existing in the Al-Dhubat Interchange in Kut city, Wassit Governorate south of Baghdad. Interpretation results of the subsurface investigation of this site have been compared with those obtained from conventional methods. Generally, the site is characterized by its gradual decreases in resistivity with depth with range of resistivity values (<1-140 ohm.m) which is mostly consists of silty clay to clayey silt with lenses or pockets of medium, stiff and very stiff silty clay with sand or gravel.
Several utility pipes with different diameters

Ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) is a cementitious material with steel fiber, which is becoming more and more widely employed in building construction. The advanced mechanical behavior of the UHPC structural elements significantly depends on the steel fiber content and steel fiber orientation.
In this study, the test result of UHPC slab under punching shear was previously tested by the Author is used herein to check the fiber amount and orientation at the failure plane. A method presented by John Long is presented to do this goal.
It was found, that the fiber content in the failure plane is differ from the fiber volume fraction used in constructed the specimen

This paper presents an approach to study the effect of the different eigenfaces levels on the faces recognition rate using principal component analysis. The increase in the strength of the variables and the lighting in the facial geometry to represent the human face , has been using the principal component analysis (PCA) on the image of the whole face . The principal component analysis is a statistical measurement method , which works in the field of linear and can be used to reduce the dimensions of the image and thus serve to reduce the calculations significantly to the image database . It is a method gives better accuracy and a higher rate of recognition . The experiment was conducted on 50 images from the database of faces (ORL), using 40 images for the training set and 15 images for the test group ( five images in common with the training set and the remaining 10 images are different in expression and corner ) . The results proved that the proposed method is effective and successful in obtaining recognition rate up to 100% in the third level when using ten eigenfaces

In the present study three dimensional nonlinear finite element analyses were conducted to investigate the effect of several important parameters on behavior of external prestressed continuous composite steel-concrete beam. These parameters included the effects of concrete compressive strength, ratio of effective prestressing to ultimate stress (fpe/fpu), external prestressing technique, ratio of thickness to width of concrete slab (T/B), transfer load point to mid span section, type of loading, full and partial interaction, tendon profile, and number of stiffeners. It had been found that, at increasing the concrete compressive strength from (20 to 60MPa) and the ratio of prestress to ultimate stress from (0.264 to 0.79), the ultimate load was increased by about (19.64%) and (9.05), respectively. The ultimate load of continuous composite beam with external prestressing was increased by about (26.63%) than the same continuous beam without prestressing. The increase in the ultimate load of the continuous beam subjected to three point loads on each span was (25.93%) larger than that of the continuous beam with a single load on each span. It was noted that the ultimate capacity was increased by (7.32%) when draped tendon profile was used. Also it was noted that the ultimate load of beam with full interaction is (3.25%) greater than the same beam with partial interaction. Increasing the thickness to width

The dry adhesive wear behavior of 1 060 and 1095 steels using pin on wheel wear test rig at room temperature under different wear conditions has been studied. The prepared specimens were normalized to m ake sure that all specimens are in the same conditions.
'The objective of this rese arch is to study the effect of operating parameters such a s rotating s peed , normal load and sliding time and their interaction on the wear behavior using regression analysis. Detailed data obtained was used to develop equations to describe the wear rate of steels. The wear losses of the specimens were expressed in term s of simultaneous contribution from the effects of rotating speed , normal load , sliding time and t heir interaction.
By applying the parameters such as rotating speed , normal load , and sliding time,observed a certain effects on the wear behavior of two types steel , the 1060 steel , sliding time is the m a in factor, followed by normal load and rotating speed . However ,for the 1095 steel , rotating s peed i s the main factor, followed by normal load and sliding time.
From results, it was concluded that the wear behavior of these steel s and the effects of this parameters on the wear depend on the physical and mechanical properties of this types of steels

The ability of geographic information systems in preparing of geo data base and its represented as digital maps is verified through data processing of mineral materials. This research aims to product digital maps for mineral materials in Iraq by transferring paper map(geological map) with scale (1:1000000) into digital map using scanning process and adjusting of coordinates system for this map using georeferencing process. Then layers are extracted from this map using digitizing process, these layers represented , also the ratio of these materials are represented on these layers as circle sector. The purpose of geo database is to make the features in geographic information system datasets and define a relationship among features that