Al-Khwarizmi Engineering Journal

A new type of solar air heater was designed, fabricated, and tested in Baghdad, Iraq winter conditions. The heater consists of two main parts. The horizontal section was filled with the black colored iron chip while the vertical part has five pipes filled with Iraqi paraffin wax. A fan was fixed at the exit of the air. Two cases were studied: when the air moved by natural convection and when forced convection moved it. The studied air heater has proven its effectiveness as it heated the air passing through it to high temperatures. The results manifest that using little air movement makes the temperatures, stored energies, and efficiencies of the two studied cases converge. The suitable solar intensity of Baghdad city makes the use of solar air heater suitable to reduce the electricity and fossil fuels consumption.

Different parameters of double pipe helical coil were investigation experimentally. Four coils were used; three with a curvature ratio (0.037, 0.031, and 0.028) and 11mm diameter of the inner tube while the fourth with 0.033 curvature ratio and 13 mm diameter of the inner tube. The hot water flow in the inner tube whereas the cold water flows in the annulus. The inlet temperatures of hot and cold water are 50 0C and 18 0C respectively. The inner mass flow rate ranges from 0.0167 to 0.0583 kg/s. The results show the Nusselt number increase with increase curvature ratio. The Nusselt number of the coil with 0.037 curvature ratio increases by approximately 12.3 % as compare with 0.028 curvature ratio. The results also reveal that the Nusselt number of the coil with curvature ratio 0.033 increases by approximately 11.6 % as compare with 0.028 curvature ratio for 400 mm coil diameter.

The influence of pre- shot peening and welding parameters on mechanical and metallurgical properties of dissimilar and similar aluminum alloys AA2024-T3 and AA6061-T6 joints using friction stir welding have been studied. In this work, numbers of plates were equipped from sheet alloys in dimensions (150*50*6) mm then some of them were exposed to shot peening process before friction stir welding using steel ball having diameter 1.25 mm for period of 15 minutes. FSW joints were manufactured from plates at three welding speeds (28, 40, 56 mm/min) and welding speed 40mm/min was chosen at a rotating speed of 1400 rpm for welding the dissimilar pre- shot plates. Tow joints were made at rotational speed of 1000 rpm and welding speed of 40m/min from shot and without shot peening plats. Welding temperature was measured in three zones using thermocouple. Micro hardness (HV) and tensile tests were performed to evaluate the mechanical characteristic of the joints. The results show a decay in mechanical qualities when the welding speed was increased and the best result was at (28) mm/min and the opposite result was obtained when rotational speed increased and pre-shot contributed in improving of this decay at 88% of welding speed (40) mm/min and 98% at the rotational speed of 1000 rpm.

Epoxy resin has many chemical features and mechanical properties, but it has a small elongation at break, low impact strength and crack propagation resistance, i.e. it exhibits a brittle behavior. In the current study, the influence of adding kaolin with variable particle size on the mechanical properties (flexural modulus E, toughness Gc, fracture toughness Kc, hardness HB, and Wear rate WR) of epoxy resin was evaluated. Composites of epoxy with varying concentrations (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 weights %) of kaolin were prepared by hand-out method. The composites showed improved (E, Gc, Kc, HB, and WR) properties with the addition of filler. Also, similar results were observed with the decrease in particle size. In addition, in this study, multiple regression models were developed by utilizing (SPSS) package to predict the properties of kaolin reinforced epoxy composites. Good agreement was obtained between the predicted and the experimental results. The accuracy of prediction was (89.71%, 80.58%, 85.82%, 92.27%, and 94.49%) for E, Gc, Kc, HB, and WR, respectively.

Deep drawing process to produce square cup is very complex process due to a lot of process parameters which control on this process, therefore associated with it many of defects such as earing, wrinkling and fracture. Study of the effect of some process parameters to determine the values of these parameters which give the best result, the distributions for the thickness and depths of the cup were used to estimate the effect of the parameters on the cup numerically, in addition to experimental verification just to the conditions which give the best numerical predictions in order to reduce the time, efforts and costs for producing square cup with less defects experimentally is the aim of this study. The numerical analysis is used to study the effect of some parameters such as die profile radius, radial clearance between die and punch, blank diameter on the length and thickness distributions on the cup, dynamic-explicit (ANSYS11) code based on finite element method is utilized to simulate the square deep drawing operation. Experiments were done for comparison and verification the numerical predictions. effective square cup with less defects and acceptable thickness distributions were produced in this study. It is concluded the most thinning appear in the corner cup due to excessive stretching occur in this region and also it is found the cup thickness and height prediction by numerical analysis and in general in harmony with experimental analysis.

To observe the effect of media of the internal pressure on the equivalent stress distribution in the tube, an experimental study is done by constructing a testing rig to apply the hydraulic pressure and three dies are manufactured with different bulging configurations (square, cosine, and conical). In the other part, ANSYS APDL is generated to analyze the bulging process with hydraulic and rubber (natural and industrial) media. It was found that when the media is a rubber, the stress is decreased about 9.068% in case of cosine die and 5.4439% in case of conical die and 2.8544% in case of square die. So, it can be concluded that the internal pressure in the rubber media is much better than in hydraulic media. Also, the force needed for forming the shape using rubber is higher than that of hydraulic and the force needed to form using industrial rubber is higher than of natural rubber. The thickness distribution in the tube wall in case of rubber media is better than that for hydraulic media and for the industrial rubber is better than that for natural rubber for the same dies. In case of hydraulic, the lower forming pressure is needed to bulging process compared with the rubber media since height stress in the tube metal is existed, which causes the failure. For the case of rubber, the forming pressure that was needed to bulge process is higher when compared with the hydraulic media but with less stress in tube metal and the failure in the wall is not existed with rubber media for the same pressure of hydraulic

The turning process has various factors, which affecting machinability and should be investigated. These are surface roughness, tool life, power consumption, cutting temperature, machining force components, tool wear, and chip thickness ratio. These factors made the process nonlinear and complicated. This work aims to build neural network models to correlate the cutting parameters, namely cutting speed, depth of cut and feed rate, to the machining force and chip thickness ratio. The turning process was performed on high strength aluminum alloy 7075-T6. Three radial basis neural networks are constructed for cutting force, passive force, and feed force. In addition, a radial basis network is constructed to model the chip thickness ratio. The inputs to all networks are cutting speed, depth of cut, and feed rate. All networks performances (outputs) for all machining force components (cutting force, passive force and feed force) showed perfect match with the experimental data and the calculated correlation coefficients were equal to one. The built network for the chip thickness ratio is giving correlation coefficient equal one too, when its output compared with the experimental results. These networks (models) are used to optimize the cutting parameters that produce the lowest machining force and chip thickness ratio. The models showed that the optimum machining force was (240.46 N) which can be produced when the cutting speed (683 m/min), depth of cut (3.18 mm) and feed rate (0.27 mm/rev). The proposed network for the chip thickness ratio showed that the minimum chip thickness is (1.21), which is at cutting speed (683 m/min), depth of cut (3.18 mm) and feed rate (0.17 mm/rev).

The linear segment with parabolic blend (LSPB) trajectory deviates from the specified waypoints. It is restricted to that the acceleration must be sufficiently high. In this work, it is proposed to engage modified LSPB trajectory with particle swarm optimization (PSO) so as to create through points on the trajectory. The assumption of normal LSPB method that parabolic part is centered in time around waypoints is replaced by proposed coefficients for calculating the time duration of the linear part. These coefficients are functions of velocities between through points. The velocities are obtained by PSO so as to force the LSPB trajectory passing exactly through the specified path points. Also, relations for velocity correction and exact velocity solution are derived. Simulation results show that the engagement of modified LSPB trajectory with PSO to work well on the tested cases. This proposed method is very simple which can be used for on-line path planning, and not necessarily to use high acceleration magnitude.

In the present paper a low cost mechanical vibration shaker of rotating unbalanced type with uniaxial shaking table was designed and constructed in an attempt to provide opportunities for experimental testing and application of vibration in experimental modal analysis, stress relief of weldments, effect of vibration on heat transfer and seismic testing of civil engineering structures. Also, it provides unexpressive solution to enhance the knowledge and technical skills of students in mechanical vibration laboratory. The shaker consists of a five main parts shaker frame, shaker table, flexible support, drive motor, and eccentricity mechanism. The experimental results show that the amplitude of the shaker is increased with increasing the frequency ratio and the maximum value was attained near the resonance condition. Also, the magnitude of amplitude is increased with increasing the eccentric mass and eccentricity values. A reasonable agreement with theoretical results shows that the shaker can be used with reliable results in vibration testing purposes. Also, in this paper, the frequency ranges of the shaker were determined for constant displacement and for constant acceleration tests to satisfy all the frequency limitation requirements of the mechanical shaker.

Functionally graded materials (FGMs), with ceramic –ceramic constituents are fabricated using powder technology techniques. In this work three different sets of FGMs samples were designed in to 3 layers, 5 layers and 7 layers. The ceramic constituents were represented by hard ferrite (Barium ferrite) and soft ferrite (lithium ferrite). All samples sintered at constant temperature at 1100oC for 2 hrs. and characterized by FESEM. Some physical properties were measured for fabricated FGMs include apparent density, bulk density, porosity, shrinkage and hardness. The results indicated that the density increase with the increase the number of layer. Lateral shrinkage is one of the important parameter for estimating the quality of component gradation in an FGM structure. The Vickers hardness show higher value at FGM7, Finally the FESEM images showed a gradation in microstructure within the system from plate- like structure for the hard ferrite to spherical structure for the soft ferrite.

The paper deals with claims in construction projects in Iraq and studies their types, causes, impacts, resolution methods and then proposes a management system to control the impacts of claims. Two parts have been done to achieve the research objective (theoretical part and practical part). The findings showed that the main types of the claims are extra work claims, different site condition claims, delay claims and the main causes of the claims are variation of the orders, design errors and omission, delay in payments by owner, variation in quantities and scheduling errors. The claims have bad impacts on the cost by increasing (10% to 25%) and also on the duration of the project by increasing from (25% to 50%).The negotiation is the main method which is used to resolve the claims in the construction project in Iraq. Finally, the proposed claims management system is developed to control the causes of the claims during the preconstruction phase and construction phase.

In the present study, MIG welding is carried out on low carbon steel type (AISI 1015) by using electrode ER308L of 1.5mm diameter with direct current straight polarity (DCSP). The joint geometry is of a single V-butt joint with one pass welding stroke for different plate thicknesses of 6, 8, and 10 mm. In welding experiments, AISI 1015 plates with dimensions of 200×100mm and edge angle of 60o from both sides are utilized. In this work, three main parameters related to MIG welding process are investigated, which are welding current, welding speed, heat input and plate thickness, and to achieve that three groups of plates are employed each one consists of three plates. The results indicate that increasing the weld heat input (through changing the current and voltage) leads to an increase in widmanstatten ferrite (WF), acicular ferrite (AF) and polygonal ferrite (PF) in FZ region, and a reduction in grain size. It is observed that the micro-hardness of welded AISI 1015 plate increases as the weld heat input decreases. As well as increasing the weld heat input results in an increase in the width of WM and HAZ and a reduction in the impact energy of the weld joint of AISI 1015 at WM region. Also, it is noted the corrosion rate of weld joint increases with increase of Icorr due to increasing in welding current (heat input), corrosion rate increased up to (0.126µm/yr.) with increasing of heat input up to (1.27 KJ/mm).

In the present work, a kinetic study was performed to the extraction of phosphate from Iraqi Akashat phosphate ore using organic acid. Leaching was studied using lactic acid for the separation of calcareous materials (mainly calcite). Reaction conditions were 2% by weight acid concentration and 5ml/gm of acid volume to ore weight ratio. Reaction time was taken in the range 2 to 30 minutes (step 2 minutes) to determine the reaction rate constant k based on the change in calcite concentration. To determine value of activation energy when reaction temperature is varied from 25 to 65℃, another investigation was accomplished. Through the kinetic data, it was found that selective leaching was controlled by surface chemical reaction. The study showed that the reaction kinetics was specifically described by the shrinking core model (SCM). Regression analyses gave values of activation energy (Ea) and Arrhenius constant (ko) as 40.108 KJ/mole and (2.256×103 sec-1) respectively.

A demonstration of the inverse kinematics is a very complex problem for redundant robot manipulator. This paper presents the solution of inverse kinematics for one of redundant robots manipulator (three link robot) by combing of two intelligent algorithms GA (Genetic Algorithm) and NN (Neural Network). The inputs are position and orientation of three link robot. These inputs are entering to Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN). The weights of BPNN are optimized using continuous GA. The (Mean Square Error) MSE is also computed between the estimated and desired outputs of joint angles. In this paper, the fitness function in GA is proposed. The sinwave and circular for three link robot end effecter and desired trajectories are simulated by MATLAB program. Joint angles and end effecter positions of robot results values of circular trajectory are better than joint angles end effecter positions of robot results values of NN work in another paper. Three link redundant robot workspace is also simulated. The outputs results of best three joint angles are evaluated for two trajectories sinwave and circular, with 50 generations the algorithm is fast. This paper presents the simulations results that are obtained based on MATLAB R2010b program.

In this paper, the human robotic leg which can be represented mathematically by single input-single output (SISO) nonlinear differential model with one degree of freedom, is analyzed and then a simple hybrid neural fuzzy controller is designed to improve the performance of this human robotic leg model. This controller consists from SISO fuzzy proportional derivative (FPD) controller with nine rules summing with single node neural integral derivative (NID) controller with nonlinear function. The Matlab simulation results for nonlinear robotic leg model with the suggested controller showed that the efficiency of this controller when compared with the results of the leg model that is controlled by PI+2D, PD+NID, and FPD-ID controllers.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are emerging in various application like military, area monitoring, health monitoring, industry monitoring and many more. The challenges of the successful WSN application are the energy consumption problem. since the small, portable batteries integrated into the sensor chips cannot be re-charged easily from an economical point of view. This work focusses on prolonging the network lifetime of WSNs by reducing and balancing energy consumption during routing process from hop number point of view. In this paper, performance simulation was done between two types of protocols LEACH that uses single hop path and MODLEACH that uses multi hop path by using Intel Care i3 CPU (2.13GHz) laptop with MATLAB (R2014a). The simulation results showed how the multi-hop protocol was more energy efficient than single hop protocol.