Journal of Engineering and Sustainable Development (JEASD)

This paper presents a comparative study of human faces recognition using two feature extraction techniques: Principle Components Analysis (PCA), and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). The performance of these techniques is evaluated and compared to find the best technique for human faces recognition. The experiments are carried out on the Olivetti and Oracle Research Laboratory (ORL), University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), and Japanese Female Facial Expression (JAFFE) face databases, which include variability in affectation, facial details, and expressions. The obtained results for the two techniques have been compared by varying the train images/test images ratio on three levels: 80/20, 60/40, and 40/60. The experimental results show that the LDA feature extraction technique gives better performance than the PCA technique. The highest recognition rate is recorded for the LDA technique (recognition rate=95.981%) when the train images/test images ratio is (80/20). On the other side, the highest recognition rate that is recorded for the PCA technique is 94.027% when the train images/test images ratio is (80/20). The PCA and LDA techniques are implemented and their performance is measured using the MATLAB (2013) program.

In order to find the effect of thermal loading on dynamic characteristics, a three-dimensional steady-state thermal analysis of a thin rectangular plate subjected to heat flux extending over a specific region with convection boundary conditions was conducted. An analytical solution was suggested with the intention of assuring the result, which was used to study the variation of dynamic characteristics. The derivation of a closed-form analytical solution of the heat equation for specific boundary conditions and heat flux model was necessary to describe the three-dimensional spatial temperature distributions which in turn were used to derive the required equation for the plate dynamics. Different plate dimensions were studied with heater location and shape was fixed, while its dimensions vary according to the plate dimension under consideration. The numerical and experimental results were found to be comparable.

A Variation order is a common phenomenon in any project. There are many causes that may lead to variation order in a construction project. This paper aims to investigate and identify the most significant causes of variation orders in different sectors of construction in Erbil Governorate, and their effects on the projects in order to manage them and find the solutions that can eliminate them by putting some control measures. This research was conducted by a questionnaire survey to elicit 30 causes of variation orders from the point of view of owners, consultant engineers, and contractors. A questionnaire was submitted to a sample of 140 persons who specialized in the construction sector in the Erbil Governorate. Out of 140 questionnaires, 120 were returned forming 18 owners, 62 consultant engineers, and 40 contractors. Then the questionnaire was analyzed statistically. Also, a case study was adopted for 30 projects of different construction sectors that were constructed from 2010-to 2013 to calculate the percentage of cost and time overrun due to variation orders. Also, a comparison study had made among the results obtained from this study and some countries for the major causes of variation orders in construction projects. The results of the questionnaire indicate that the Owner and consultant engineer is the most responsible parties causing changes. The most important causes of variation orders in construction projects in Erbil Governorate are changes in the bill of quantities, changes of plans, or schedule by the Owner...

The present study is focused on the effect of oxygen enrichment (as oxidizer) on the flame characteristics of the premixed flame of Iraqi Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), which consider the first measurement of laminar premixed flame speed for (LPG) with oxygen enrichment. A test rig is designed and fabricated to measure the laminar flame speed using a tube – method and optical technique (photodiode). The laminar flame speed results were obtained at atmospheric pressure, 301K initial temperature; three levels of oxygen concentration (21, 23 & 25) volume % and equivalence ratio (from 0.6 to 1.4) were tested. All the measurements were carried out during the pre-pressure period. Experimental laminar burning velocity is calculated according to the “density ratio method”, also the variation of adiabatic flame temperature, flame thickness, and Zel’dovich number which were introduced. The experimental results show that the maximum value for laminar burning velocity occurs at an equivalence ratio = 1.1, and the maximum increase percentage was (23.45%). Validation of experimental work is approved by comparison values of laminar burning velocity for (ILPG – air) mixture with the available published data at the same conditions. Good agreements are observed in the comparison with the other literature results. (21, 23&25) volume%.

The effect of pores in Fe- Cu and Fe-Cu-C generated by sintering with solid-state has been studied. The additive alloying elements Cu & C and the size of the pores were affected by wear rate, therefore the carbon reduces the wear rate, and larger pores lowing the wear rate. Geometrical distributions of the secondary pores were independent of Cu and C fractions used. Structural materials sintered with solid-state and Argon atmosphere (Ar), it seems therefore desirable to use as fine alloying powders as possible to attain optimum wear resistance. This work was done in two stages: First stage, pore formation during sintering with two different additive alloying elements Cu & C. While the second stage wear test was performed by using the pin-on-disc machine for different loads (2, 4, 6, and 8 N) to each composite material used in this work under dry sliding conditions. The results showed that obvious improvement in wear resistance for C additive alloying element more than Cu.

The main aim of this work is to use a keystroke biometric system as a behavioral type of biometrics and to improve the accuracy and dependability of the system. In this proposed we've pre-processed the data of dynamic keystrokes by converting the feature to a one-dimensional vector. In feature extraction, we've used Wavelet Energy (WE) by implementing 2D dimensional Discrete Wavelet (2D-DWT) into four-level and computing the energy for the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). SVD is computed on the result of the wavelet and saved in a file for training information. Wavelet transforms Daubchies “DBI” basic function has the advantage that provides a good energy localization in the frequency domain as other wavelet transforms and then using Elman networks (Backpropagation) for training and testing the system and it is useful in such areas as signal processing and prediction where time plays a dominant role.

This work describes the design and the implementation of a low-cost high security electronic lock system based on a PIC microcontroller embedded system. The proposed system includes a thirty-eight buttons keypad panel interface, 16x2 LCD, and a PIC16F887 microcontroller. This work introduces two main challenges; The first one is physical matching the proposed 38 buttons keypad to the proposed PIC microcontroller so that each button will represent a specific unique single digit (number or character) without interfering with each other. The second one is in writing the PIC program (firmware) that will handle and recognize each input digit in order to be processed by the internal center processing unit of the microcontroller for performing a specific task. The proposed system is implemented using a PIC16F887 microcontroller because of its low cost then capsulated as an integrated system and tested under real conditions. The results of the tests show a highly reliable security lock system with a completely error-free design which makes it so practical for security applications such as doors, gates, garages, and safes.

Often rehabilitation of flexible pavement expensive process, especially if the pavement problems in the substrata, whether in the base layer or natural ground layer simple surface layer does not lead to a long-term solution, and are being considered in many of the secondary materials for use as alternatives to the natural aggregate in paving roads as solutions engineering and economical way. The study includes laboratory experiments and analysis using a finite element analysis model of the finite elements of the two-dimensional layer based on the improved pavement under the dynamic loading effect. The calculated damage such as fatigue, rutting, and surface deformation of base materials and treated base materials using finite elements PLAXIS program (PLAXI V8.6) has been used different ratios of Reclaimed Concrete Aggregate and Foundry Sand, has the study using treated base materials with (50,15)% of Reclaimed Concrete Aggregate and Foundry Sand, respectively. It was suggested that an alternative method in this study, for the characteristics of the materials used for the flexible pavement required for finite element analysis by examining the compressive strength Using equations available in the literature available. It has been found that the improved base layer with Foundry Sand and Reclaimed Concrete Aggregate leads to a decrease in the estimated fatigue 90% and 14%, respectively. The rutting reduced Foundry Sand and Reclaimed Concrete Aggregate by about 93% and 52%, respectively.

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the behavior of wide reinforced concrete beams with different shear steel plate spacing. Four reinforced concrete wide beams with the dimensions of 215x560x1800mm are investigated. The variables studied in this work are using the 10mm stirrups with 125mm spacing and 3mm thick steel plate with spacing 125, 166, and 250mm instead of reinforcing stirrups. Shear steel plates are a good alternative for stirrups and give identical results in yield and ultimate loads and increase the ductility by 55% and reduced the strain on the exterior and interior legs by 17% and 46% respectively compared with stirrups also reducing the total weight of wide beams by 2.7%. By increasing the spacing of the shear steel plate by 33% and 100%, the results showed that the yield load reduced to 5% and 12%, respectively, but the deflection was increased by 2% and 16%, respectively (at yield). The strain on interior legs is more than the strain on the exterior legs (having a spacing of 125, 166, and 250mm) by 31%, 70%, and 1% respectively. ACI 318-14(1) and EC 2(2) codes are given a predicted deflection less than the experimental deflection by 19% and 21% on average, respectively.

Experimental research on the adsorptive capacity of Granular Activated Carbon GAC, Phosphate Rock PR, Saw Dust SD and Rice Husk RH for phosphate removal from simulated wastewater was conducted. Results showed that the removal efficiency of four adsorbents was the consequence of RR (82.6%) ˃ SD (43.72%) ˃ GAC (41.28%) ˃ RH (34.4%). To understand the action of phosphate uptake, factors influencing the adsorption process using the best adsorbent (PR) including pH, mixing speed, contact time, the weight of the adsorbent, initial phosphate concentration, and temperature were investigated. It was found that the equilibrium data fitted very well with the Langmuir model with a high determination coefficient (R2). The maximum uptake capacity (qmax) was 24.716 mg/g. Adsorption data were modeled using the pseudo-first, pseudo-second-order, Intraparticle diffusion, and Elovich models. It was found that the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation could best describe the adsorption kinetics. Thermodynamic parameters showed that the adsorption of investigated phosphate onto PR was exothermic, spontaneous in nature and the process is physisorption. It was found that sodium hydroxide (0.1 M NaOH) was an efficient adsorbent solution in the recovery of phosphate pollutants among different adsorbents: HCl, H2SO4, NaOH, Na2CO3, EDTA, and deionized distilled water (DDW) from PR. The breakthrough curves for the adsorption column test were obtained in a continuous adsorption fixed-bed experiment, The measured breakthrough times for RH, GAC, SD, and PR were found to be 10, 30, 40, and 60 min, respectively.

The research's main object was to determine factors that affect the selection of building materials according to sustainability principles. The research objective was achieved through two stages; the first stage included a theoretical study about sustainable building materials and their characteristics, while the second stage included a practical study to determine the relative importance of the factors that affect the selection of building materials. The results of the practical study showed that environmental criteria got high importance after economic criteria among the identified factors while social criteria got the last priority in the selection of building materials. Deepening on the results of the practical study a methodology for applying sustainability principles in the selection of building materials was proposed. The proposed methodology included the use of multi-criteria decision-making methods like goal achievement matrix and analytical hierarchy process in the selection of building materials.

The hard workers are usually suffering from big medical problems after working with vibrating equipment such as compressors and different types of drills. These and many relative problems give a big motivation to study, measure, and analyze the vibration. The data were resulting from the vibration of the power tools to the human hand of the user that is in touch with this vibrating equipment is considered one of the most interesting Biomechanical Engineering. This work studies the vibration frequency, displacement, and velocity acceleration that will be measured at different hand points. The examination was conducted on two workers (subjects) who are different in age, weight, and height. This investigation requires the design and manufacture of vibration measurement systems according to international standards ( ISO 28927-10).ANSYS 15 program was chosen in order to evaluate the numerical results and then compare them with experimental results. Different types were used of Anti-vibration gloves in order to reduce the vibration connecting to the hand-arm workers. The results show that values of acceleration and frequency are increased with the decreasing distance of the sensor point from the drill handle. When using the subject (1) as a grand foundation, the reduction in frequency and acceleration when wearing gloves, The reduction percentage in the metacarpal for the sponge handle is (34.4 %) while in the working gloves is (30.6 %), silicon gloves are (28.6 %), cloth gloves are (26.6 %), and leather gloves are (25.9 %)...

The aim of this study is to calculate the moisture expansion coefficient of the above-knee prosthetic socket lamination. Six laminations composite materials were used in manufacturing above knee prosthetic sockets using a vacuum device. The reinforced materials of these laminations were Perlon, Fiberglass, and Nanocarbon powder, while the matrix material was Polyurethane resin. The experimental work included a moisture absorption test to determine the time of absorption and calculate the percent moisture content and moisture expansion coefficient for these laminations. The humidity used in this study was (51, 75, 80, and 100 %). The results indicated that lamination (2perlon+2fiberglass+2perlon) has the highest value of moisture expansion coefficient, while lamination (5perlon+2fiberglass+5perlon) has the lowest value of moisture expansion coefficient.

The objectives of this work are to design, simulate and analyze the operation of an intelligent lead-acid battery charger supplied from two (250W) nominal power, Photovoltaic (PV) panels in parallel to charge two (200Ah) capacity lead-acid batteries in parallel. The storage battery's effectiveness depends on the charging process. Hence, this research deals with the study, simulation, and design of an intelligent charger fed by the solar system due to the latest technologies. The developed charging method entitled "the decreased charging current based on SOC" is adopted in this research to charge a lead-acid battery. The principle of decreased charging current is to make the real charging current as close as possible to the maximum acceptable current. The advantage of this technique is to mix the rapidity of charging and prevents overcharging and generating gases. Also, the design considers different operating conditions of load, battery state of charge (SOC), and ambient effect in order to achieve the best charging condition of the batteries and to be compatible with the user requirements. Therefore, this technique of charging can be considered intelligent charging compared to traditional charging ways, which are often either a constant charging current or a constant charging voltage. The flexible, simple, and cheap design is the objective of this research. The obtained results agree with the research objective.

The characteristics of organic soil are low permeability, low shear strength, and high compressibility, therefore organic soil has to be improved before any engineering works can commence. In this study, dry kaolinite is used as a clay mineral and fresh reed as an organic material for different percentages (0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, 12%, and 20%) by dry weight. Lime is used as a treatment material for different percentages (0%, 3%, 6%, and 9%) by dry weight. The experimental work includes a series of compaction and direct shear tests conducted on 48 samples. The effect of the addition of lime on shear strength parameters of non-decomposed and decomposed model organic soil was studied. The results showed that the cohesion values (c) increase with increasing organic content up to 5% for non-decomposed samples and up to 7.0% for decomposed samples while the angle of internal friction (φ) increases with the increase in organic content for both decomposed and non-decomposed samples. Also use of lime has increased the angle of internal friction of soil, especially when used within the range of (0-3) % lime content.