Journal of Engineering

Temperature inside the vehicle cabin is very important to provide comfortable conditions to the car passengers. Temperature inside the cabin will be increased, when the car is left or parked directly under the sunlight. Experimental studies were performed in Baghdad, Iraq (33.3 oN, 44.4 oE) to investigate the effects of solar radiation on car cabin components (dashboard, steering wheel, seat, and inside air). The test vehicle was oriented to face south to ensure maximum (thermal) sun load on the front windscreen. Six different parking conditions were investigated. A suggested car cover was examined experimentally. The measurements were recorded for clear sky summer days started at 8 A.M. till 5 P.M. Results show that interior air temperature in unshaded parked car reaches 70oC and dashboard temperature can approach 100 oC. While, cardboard car shade inside the car not reduce the air temperature inside it. Suggested car cover with 1 cm part-down side windows reduced temperature of cabin components by 70 % in average compare to the base case.

In this paper, effective slab width for the composite beams is investigated with special emphasis on the effect of web openings. A three dimensional finite element analysis, by using finite element code ANSYS, is employed to investigate shear lag phenomenon and the resulting effective slab width adopted in the classical T-beam approach. According to case studies and comparison with limitations and rules stipulated by different standards and codes of practice it is found that web openings presence and panel proportion are the most critical factors affecting effective slab width, whereas concrete slab thickness and steel beam depth are less significant. The presence of web opening reduces effective slab width by about 21%. Concentrated load produces smaller effective slab width when compared with uniformly distributed and line loads. Generally, standard codes of practice overestimate effective slab width for concentrated load effect, while underestimate effective slab width for uniformly distributed and line load effect. Based on the data available, sets of empirical equations are developed to estimate the effective slab width in the composite beams with web openings to be used in the classical T-beam approach taking into account the key parameters investigated.

Experimental research was carried out to investigate the performance of CFRP wrapping jackets used for retrofitting twelve square reinforced concrete (CR) column specimens damaged by exposure to fire flame, at different temperatures of 300, 500 and 700ºC, except for two specimens that were not burned. The specimens were then loaded axially till failure after gradual or sudden cooling. The specimens were divided into two groups containing two main reinforcement ratios, ρ= 0.0314 and ρ= 0.0542. This was followed by the retrofitting procedure that included wrapping all the specimens with two layers of CFRP fabric sheets. The test results of the retrofitted specimens showed that the fire damaged RC column specimens can be retrofitted efficiently by using CFRP wrap jackets, as they provided good confinement of the damaged concrete core. Also, the ultimate load capacity of each retrofitted specimen was increased compared to that before retrofitting by about 16, 34 and 44% for the specimens burned at 300, 500 and 700ºC respectively, and cooled gradually, whereas this increase was 44% and 111% for the specimens subjected to burning temperatures of 500 and 700ºC, respectively, but cooled suddenly. This ability of each column specimen to absorb energy before and after retrofitting was also improved. The average improvement in modulus of toughness before and after retrofitting was 8% for the specimens not exposed to fire flame and 10, 100, 250% for the specimens exposed to 300, 500 and 700ºC respectively.

A two time step stochastic multi-variables multi-sites hydrological data forecasting model was developed and verified using a case study. The philosophy of this model is to use the cross-variables correlations, cross-sites correlations and the two steps time lag correlations simultaneously, for estimating the parameters of the model which then are modified using the mutation process of the genetic algorithm optimization model. The objective function that to be minimized is the Akiake test value. The case study is of four variables and three sites. The variables are the monthly air temperature, humidity, precipitation, and evaporation; the sites are Sulaimania, Chwarta, and Penjwin, which are located north Iraq. The model performance was checked by comparing it's results with the results of six forecasting models developed for the same data by Al-Suhili and khanbilvardi, 2014.The check of the performance of the new developed model was made for three forecasted series for each variable, using the Akaike test which indicates that the developed model is more successful, since it gave the minimum (AIC) values for (91.67 %) of the forecasted series. This indicates that the developed model had improved the forecasting performance. For the rest of cases (8.33%), other models gave the lowest AIC value, however it is slightly lower than that given by the developed model. Moreover the t-test for monthly means comparison between the models indicates that the developed model has the highest percent of succeed (100%).

Iraq depends mainly on Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to provide high percentage of agricultural water use for thousands years. At last years, Iraq is suffering from shortage in water resources due to global climate changes and unfair water politics of the neighboring countries, which affected the future of agriculture plans for irrigation, added to that the lack of developed systems of water management in the irrigation projects and improper allocation of irrigation water, which reduces water use efficiency and lead to losing irrigation water and decreasing in agricultural yield. This study aims at studying the usability of irrigation and leaching scheduling within the irrigating projects and putting a complete annual or seasonal irrigation program as a solution for the scarcity of irrigation water, the increase of irrigation efficiency, lessening the salinity in the projects and preparing an integral irrigation calendar through field measurements of soil physical properties and chemical for project selected and compared to the results of the irrigation scheduling and leaching with what is proposed by the designers. The process is accomplished by using a computer program which was designed by Water Resources Department at the University of Baghdad, with some modification to generalize it and made it applicable to various climatic zone and different soil types. Study area represented by large project located at the Tigris River, and this project was (Al-Amara) irrigation project. Sufficient samples of project's soil were collected so as to identify soil physical and chemical properties and the salinity of soil and water as well as identifying the agrarian cycles virtually applied to this project. Finally, a comparison was conducted between the calculated water quantities and the suggested ones by the designers. The research results showed that using this kind of scheduling (previously prepared irrigation and leaching scheduling) with its properties which made it applicable requires an intense care when using the plant distribution pattern, the agrarian cycle, its agrarian areas and agricultural intensity within all climatic regions. Also, it was found that this program was an instrumental tool for providing water if the plant distribution pattern was well-selected.

Unsaturated soil can raise many geotechnical problems upon wetting and drying resulting in swelling upon wetting and collapsing (shrinkage) in drying and changing in the soil shear strength. The classical principles of saturated soil are often not suitable in explaining these phenomena. In this study, expansive soil (bentonite and sand) were tested in different water contents and dry unit weight chosen from the compaction curve to examine the effect of water content change on soil properties (swelling pressure, expansion index, shear strength (soil cohesion) and soil suction by the filter paper method). The physical properties of these soils were studied by conducting series of tests in laboratory. Fitting methods were applied to obtain the whole curve of the SWRC measured by the filter paper method with the aid of the (Soil Vision) program. The study reveals that the initial soil conditions (water content and dry unit weight) affect the soil cohesion, soil suction and soil swelling, where all these parameters marginally decrease with the increase in soil water content especially on the wet side of optimum.

Gypseous soils are distributed in many regions in the world including Iraq, which cover more than (31%) of the surface area of the country. Existence of these soils, always with high gypsum content, caused difficult problems to the buildings and strategic projects due to dissolution and leaching of the gypsum caused by the action of water flow through soil mass. For the study, the gypseous soil was brought from Bahr Al-Najaf, Al-Najaf Governorate which is located in the middle of Iraq. The model pile was embedded in gypseous soil with 42% gypsum content. Compression axial model pile load tests have been carried out for model pile embedded in gypseous soil at initial degree of saturation of (7%) before and after soil saturation. Several criteria have been used to calculate the bearing capacity of the model bored pile through the results of the pile load tests. It was found that Shen's method gave almost an acceptable result for all model pile load tests. Large draw down in bearing capacity was observed when model pile has been loaded after it was subjected to soaking for (24) hours because of loss of cementing action of gypsum by wetting.

The objective of this study is to investigate the application of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) in the treatment of wastewater contaminated with furfural. The AOPs investigated is the homogeneous photo-Fenton (UV/H2O2/Fe+2) process. The experiments were conducted by using cylindrical stainless steel batch photo-reactor. The influence of different variables: initial concentration of H2O2 (300-1300mg/L), Fe+2(20-70mg/L), pH(2-7) and initial concentration of furfural (50-300 mg/L) and their relationship with the mineralization efficiency were studied.


Complete mineralization for the system UV/H2O2/Fe+2 was achieved at: initial H2O2 = 1300mg/L, Fe+2 = 30mg/L, pH=3, temperature =30oC and irradiation time of 60 min, for 300mg/L furfural concentration. The results have shown that the oxidation reagent H2O2 plays a very important role in the furfural mineralization.

Orthophoto provides a significant alternative capability for the presentation of architectural or archaeological applications. Although orthophoto production from airphotography of high or lower altitudes is considered to be typical, the close range applications for the large-scale survey of statue or art masterpiece or any kind of monuments still contain a lot of interesting issues to be investigated.


In this paper a test was carried out for the production of large scale orthophoto of highly curved surface, using a statue constructed of some kind of stones. In this test we use stereo photographs to produce the orthophoto in stead of single photo and DTM, by applying the DLT mathematical relationship as base formula in differential rectification process. The possibilities and the restrictions of the used programs for the extraction of digital surface model & orthophoto production were investigated. The accuracy of the adjusted images using the digital differential rectification package, are checked using 3 check points and the RMSE was computed in 3-dimensions. Conclusions for usefulness and reliability of this test for such special applications were derived.

The concept of rehabilitation provided an essential richness in the conservation philosophy through sustaining buildings life and adapting them to the contemporary use through a vision which looks at the present and future . In Iraq , the existence of historical buildings and the traditional fabric in the cities required the urban development which enhanced the interests of planning and architectural fields especially the building rehabilitation which requires the architectural intervention , and all that led to elaborate the problem of research which is " The confusion in the concepts of monumental, historical and traditional buildings in Iraq, As well as The insufficient knowledge about rehabilitation and the acts related to it through the orientation of conservation in general, And the confusion between the levels of urban conservation and architectural conservation, and the challenges which accompany each of the urban rehabilitation and building rehabilitation in Iraqi reality in particular. And from this problem the research looks to Clarify the concepts of monumental, historical and traditional buildings and the nature of actions which are used to protect and sustain them, As well as Clarify the types of actions that are taken to protect those buildings through the orientations of rehabilitation and clarify the procedures, acts which are classified as policies, strategies and mechanisms. And Clarify the levels of rehabilitation on the urban level, and the architectural level (preserve and rehabilitate the single building) and their challenges in Iraq to find a formula that can solve the gap between the two levels. And to achieve these goals, the research put the theoretical framework and support it with the global experiences, which led to put a default perception represented by " It is possible to activate the rehabilitation of historical and traditional buildings in Iraq at medium scale between the major projects in urban renewal and the rehabilitation of individual building through a pilot projects to a group of buildings (traditional or historical have the connections on the urban level in the traditional fabric ". which provides a possible formula can be applied on the Iraqi reality. And get out the conclusions and recommendations from the research.