Journal of Engineering

This study presents a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)-based scheme for optimal
targeted load shedding and contingency severity assessment in the electric power grid
(EPG). The IEEE 14 EPG was used as a testbed. The study identified critical branches and
quantitatively evaluated the operational performance of an EPG under base case, outage
without and with targeted load shedding schemes, utilizing convergence characteristics,
voltage magnitudes and angles, and branch load flows as diagnostic metrics. The base case
demonstrated excellent numerical stability, with convergence achieved in fewer than 5
iterations, and all bus voltages maintained within the IEEE standard range. A critical outage
scenario caused severe difficulty, as evidenced by prolonged convergence (exceeding 15
iterations), a drastic voltage at Bus 1 to 0.7214pu, and overloading of Line 2 to 2.0524pu,
approximately 275% of its base case loading. These conditions signified an unstable
operational state, posing severe risks to system security. Implementation of targeted load
shedding significantly improved system conditions: convergence iterations reduced to
approximately 6, Bus 1 voltage restored to 0.9682pu, and Line 2 loading decreased to
0.5683pu. Other buses consistently maintained voltages within acceptable margins, and
branch flows on non-critical lines remained insignificant across all cases. Voltage angle
profiles further corroborate the systemic stress during outage and the stabilization effect
post-load shedding. The proposed technique quantitatively demonstrates that selective load
shedding is an effective corrective control strategy, not only restoring voltage stability but
also alleviating transmission line overloading, thus enhancing the EPG’s ability to maintain
secure and reliable operation under severe contingency conditions

Given the pivotal role that roads play in a nation's development, their construction often
entails significant risks and challenges. Therefore, road construction projects must be
successfully implemented. Numerous studies have been conducted to discover the key
factors affecting road construction projects and their improvement. The aim of this study
was to examine and pre-determine the factors affecting the success of road construction.
Data was collected from experts in the field of road management to identify the factors
influencing road construction projects in Iraq. Data was also used from interviews with road
construction project managers. After analyzing this data, the study concluded that there are
several external and internal constraints that affect project success. These constraints
include site preparation, implemented infrastructure, land ownership restrictions, technical
design constraints, administrative constraints, financial constraints, and security
constraints. A plan-based analysis revealed that the highest percentage of constraints was
related to technical design (22%). The study recommended addressing these constraints
proactively to avoid future problems during project implementation while increasing the
accuracy of planning and managing bills of quantities to reduce change orders. While
ensuring cash flow for projects to avoid delays, the availability of skilled labor is also
essential. This work contributes to existing knowledge by providing academics and project
management experts with an additional set of variables to consider when attempting to
predict the outcomes of road construction projects. Project managers and stakeholders in
Iraq can benefit from the study's findings to enhance the likelihood of success of road
construction projects.

This study evaluates the hydraulic performance of Baghdad's water supply network by
analysing pressure heads and velocities. In this work, Water-CAD hydraulic models
integrated with QGIS were utilized. The districts 821 and 835 were selected in partnership
with Al-Rashid Municipality Water Department, two districts fed from a single source, with
the construction period of the two networks differing. They were calibrated in Darwin
calibration using field-measured pressure at five and three locations, respectively, achieving
coefficient of determination (R²) = 0.99. In District 821, pressure analysis during peak
demand revealed that most junctions operated under 7 m H₂O, with 14% exhibiting negative
pressure and 84% below this threshold. Velocity analysis showed that 94% of pipes
maintained velocities below 0.5 m/s, 5.6% operated between 0.5–2 m/s, and 0.5% exceeded
2 m/s. At low demand, more than half of the junctions recorded pressure heads below 7 m
H₂O, while 25% exceeded this value. Velocity levels during low demand do not have
considerable variations compared with peak hours usage. In district 835, all junctions
recorded pressures below 7 m H₂O during peak demand, with about 50% experiencing
negative pressure. Low demand analysis indicated 80 junctions operated below 7 m H₂O,
while 27 exceeded this criterion. Velocity analysis revealed that 83% of pipes operated
below 0.5 m/s, with the remaining 17% within 0.5–2 m/s. In conclusion, both networks
predominantly operated below the acceptable pressure head of 7 m H₂O, highlighting
insufficient water supply to consumers, particularly during peak demand periods.

It is well known that drilling challenges, in addition to fluctuating oil prices and increasing
competition for production, can contribute to unscheduled field expenditures exceeding one
billion U.S. dollars annually. This study emphasizes the importance of integrating
geomechanical principles into petroleum engineering, which includes reservoir, drilling, and
production operations. A case study was conducted on one well in Rumaila oilfield, located
in southern Iraq, to determine the geomechanical properties of carbonate, sandstone, and
shale formations. Stress regimes, elastic, and rock strength properties were analyzed. The
results showed the stress regime is a strike-slip regime from the Sadi to Zubair formations.
The Tanuma formation exhibits low elasticity and strength properties, indicating optimized
mud rheological properties for effective lifting capacity. The MishCR1 reservoir, as a
producible formation with high rock mechanical stability, can resist compaction and fault
reactivation. Other oil-producible reservoirs (MishMA, MishMB2, MishMB1, Zu1, and Zu2)
have moderate geomechanical properties, requiring tailored production rates, pressure
management, and enhanced recovery methods to mitigate deformation risks. For sandstone
reservoirs (Zu1 and Zu2), gravel packing or chemical stabilization is recommended to
sustain reservoir performance and enhance oil recovery. This study presents the need for
geo-mechanical insights to optimize petroleum operations and mitigate production risks.

The concept of urban synergy emerged as a response to the challenges facing urban city
centers in light of rapid urban development, contemporary challenges, and the continuous
changes affecting cities. One of the most important of these challenges is the loss of the
defining features of their urban centers, which once gave them their unique identity as vital
urban elements, and the concept\'s relation to placemaking. Accordingly, the research
problem was identified as a lack of knowledge about the functional diversity of urban
synergy and its relationship to creative placemaking in urban centers within a contemporary
vision. In light of this problem, the research objective was set to uncover the role of
functional diversity of urban synergy in creative placemaking within urban centers, aiming
to rediscover the potential of these centers, along with the role of synergy characteristics in
enhancing the quality of the urban core. Thus, the challenge of creating creative places with
functional diversity has become an urgent necessity for establishing distinctive, cohesive,
and socially and culturally synergistic urban environments- enhancing social participation
and forming a contemporary city with an effective, synergistic urban center that meets the
needs of society. The research identifies the functional diversity index to be tested on a
selected research sample within the center of Samawah City using GIS applications. The
results show that urban synergy contributes effectively to enhancing the concept of creative
placemaking in urban centers through the functional diversity index, leading to more
effective urban centers and the creation of a synergistic urban structure.

The discarded construction waste materials can be re-used as a new source of aggregate.
These wastes, such as clay bricks, can be managed by recycling them into new construction
materials after being collected, dried, crushed, and ground for use in concrete production .
This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using recycled brick waste as sand to produce
sustainable reactive-powder-concrete (R-P-C), and to assess the influence of various curing
techniques on its mechanical strength. In this study, two sustainable R-P-C mixtures (BM15
and BM30) were prepared, containing 15% and 30% brick waste as sand (BS), as a volume
replacement for Sika sand in the reference mixture (RM). The mixtures were cured under
three curing techniques: coating (C), high temperature + normal curing (HN) with three
cycles: 1 day (HN1), 2 days (HN2), and 3 days (HN3) of immersion in (50 ± 2)°C water plus
normal curing until the age of testing, and autogenous + normal curing (AN), in addition to
normal curing (N) as a control curing technique. The results indicated that the high
temperature + normal curing was the most effective curing method for all mixtures, with
improvements of 16.03%, 17.45%, and 18.53% for HN1, HN2, and HN3, respectively, in
compressive strength at 28 days for RM. Additionally, results showed that sustainable R-P-C
mixtures exhibited higher compressive strength than RM, with improvements up to 15.39%
at 28 days, accompanied by proportional improvements in splitting tensile and flexural
strengths for all mixtures under all curing regimes. These findings indicate that recycled
brick as sand, when combined with proper curing, can produce sustainable R-P-C mixtures
with high mechanical strength.

The quality of drinking water is considered among the most urgent issues worldwide
nowadays. Ensuring safe water for human consumption remains the highest priority, while
challenges also persist in meeting the water quality needs for industrial and agricultural
uses. Most of the relevant studies lack accuracy in assessing water quality. Therefore, this
study aims to forecast the quality of drinking water along the Tigris River in Iraq following a
new approach. A developed forecasting model that utilizes the gravitational search
algorithm (GSA) was deployed. The heuristic optimization tool was utilized
for the prediction of the water quality index (WQI) in the research area. Out of twelve water
stations, 575 samples were gathered and used for modelling in this study. The water quality
was classified according to World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations using the
generally applied arithmetic method, the WQI. Based on the concentrations of eleven
parameters (BOD, Ca, Cl, EC, HCO3, K, Mg, Na, NO3, pH, SO4, and TDS), the WQI for all samples
was computed. The results of this study indicated that the water quality was significantly
influenced. The evaluation of the applied model revealed that the GSA-based model exhibited
statistically consistent performance (mean = 1.04, Standard deviation (SD) = 0.109, and
Coefficient of variation (CoV) = 10.48%), indicating stable predictions compared to other
models that demonstrated higher accuracy. The outcomes also showed greater variability in
their results, positioning the GSA model as the preferred choice in scenarios that prioritize
stability and reliability in water quality predictions.

Solar energy is considered a sustainable and clean source of power. Even so, solar cells face
challenges such as the low efficiency of some systems and the need for large installation
areas. Therefore, efforts have been directed toward developing technologies like perovskite
solar cells to improve efficiency and reduce the need for large spaces. The experimental work
was conducted under outdoor exposure in Baghdad, Al-Jaderia. The readings were taken on
selected days, where the atmospheric conditions of clear sky. To study the impacts of
temperature variations on solar performance, solar irradiance must be kept constant and
vice versa. Therefore, to have a temperature range and for more accuracy, the measurements
were done for the tested module with five solar radiation levels: 200, 400, 600, 800, and
1000 W/m2. The optimum conditions that it have the best performance are achieved when
the solar module works at a low ambient temperature. The highest power at solar radiation
1000W/m² was 446.2 mW and at module temperature 43 C°, while the minimum
corresponding 64 mW at solar radiation 200W/m2 and module temperature of 43.6 C°. The
highest open voltage equals 10.80 V, and at a module temperature of 43 C°, and maximum
short current 77 mA at solar irradiance 1000W/m2 and module temperature 58 C°. The best
value of fill factor was achieved 0.661 at solar irradiance 200 W/m2 and module temperature
43.6 C°. While the best efficiency value 8.9 % at solar radiation 1000 W/m2, and module
temperature 43 C°.

Physical Layer Key Generation (PLKG) provides a promising approach for establishing
secure cryptographic keys between legitimate parties. However, in static and quasi-static
environments, the key generation rate is significantly limited due to the low entropy of the
wireless channel. To overcome this, Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) have been
proposed to enhance the channel entropy by altering the phase of incident electromagnetic
waves. This paper addresses this challenge by proposing a security architecture that
integrates a Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) base station with a Beyond-Diagonal
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (BD-RIS) in multi-user scenarios, in the presence of an
eavesdropper. Unlike conventional RIS, BD-RIS not only modifies the phase but also the
magnitude of the impinging signals, introducing an additional degree of freedom that further
enhances channel randomness. The secret key capacity of the proposed system is compared
with that of conventional RIS in two scenarios: firstly, when a direct link exists alongside the
BD-RIS-assisted link. Secondly, when the direct link is completely obstructed by an obstacle.
Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed BD-RIS architecture outperforms
conventional diagonal RIS (D-RIS) in all scenarios. Furthermore, the generated keys undergo
randomness tests, successfully passing all National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) randomness subtests as well as the Autocorrelation (AC) test, confirming their
suitability for secure communications. These findings establish BD-RIS as a promising
technology for enhancing physical layer security in static environments for 5G/6G networks
and IoT applications.

Thermal comfort in university outdoor spaces is a fundamental requirement for creating a
sustainable environment that supports student activities and events, and it is linked to the
physical characteristics of the campus. The research problem emerged from a knowledge
gap regarding the impact of urban formation on achieving thermal comfort in these spaces.
The research assumes that specific urban formation indicators effectively influence users'
perceptions of thermal comfort. It aims to analyze the impact of these indicators on
improving thermal comfort within the university environment, with a focus on identifying
the most effective in achieving thermal balance. A comparative analytical methodology was
adopted that included diverse university environments from international studies, selected
based on their diverse climates, formation patterns, and geographical distribution. This
aimed to evaluate the performance of formation indicators and extract the most important
factors influencing thermal comfort. The results showed that sky view factor, building
coverage ratios, and vegetation cover are among the most influential formation indicators.
Other indicators also emerged, such as the ratio of open spaces, building and wall heights,
surface reflectivity, height-to-street width ratio, and ground coverage, which collectively
contribute to reducing air and surface temperatures. The study recommended increasing
vegetation cover and enhancing urban elements that are effective in reducing temperatures,
while also ensuring a dynamic thermal balance between humans and the built environment
to support a comfortable and sustainable university environment.

Reservoir quality assessment is important for detecting hydrocarbon-bearing zones and
guiding future enhancement strategies. This study presents a detailed petrophysical
evaluation of the Mishrif Formation in the Buzurgan Oilfield, which was selected due to its
strategic value through its significant remaining reserves which making it an ideal candidate
for advanced evaluation techniques. This study aims for shale content, porosity,
permeability, water saturation, net to gross, and lithology determination. Well log and core
data were used together to establish accurate property estimations. Permeability prediction
through conventional methods, like core permeability-porosity correlations, was highly
dispersive due to the heterogeneity of the carbonate formation. To ensure accurate
permeability prediction, the Hydraulic Flow Unit method was employed with the Bootstrap
Forest-AI model. The research results reveal that MB21 is the principal pay zone, which
exhibits high porosity, low water saturation (high hydrocarbon saturation), and low shale
content. These zone favorable properties make it encouraging for future development
through drilling more production wells in this zone. This study presents a novel hybrid
approach that integrates classical petrophysical approaches with an AI model, providing a
robust platform for reservoir characterization.

In this work, a vertical pulsating heat pipe heat exchanger (PHPHE) was designed for waste
heat recovery, exchanging thermal energy between two air streams in a counterflow
configuration. The heat exchanger consists of six rows, each row consists of one pulsating
heat pipe (PHP), and each PHP has six turns. The working fluid used in the heat pipe was
acetone with fill ratios of 50%, 60%, and 70%. The effect of evaporator inlet temperature at
40, 45, and 50°C and air velocity at 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 m/s on the pulsating heat pipes consisting
of three sections- evaporator, condenser, and adiabatic, whose dimensions were 25 x 25 x
10 cm, was studied. At the same time, the condenser temperature was maintained at 26°C.
The system’s thermal resistance, effectiveness, and heat transfer were calculated using
Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software. Results showed that the device's efficiency
ranged from approximately 15% to 32%. The device performed better at a 50% fill ratio
compared to other ratios, achieving high efficiency at low speeds.