A Review on Expansive Soils Stabilized with Different Pozzolanic Materials

Soils that cause effective damages to engineer structures (such as pavement and foundation) are called problematic or difficult soils (include collapsible soil, expansive soil, etc.). These damages occur due to poor or unfavorited engineering properties, such as low shear strength, high compressibility, high volume changes, etc. In the case of expansive soil, the problem of the shrink-swell phenomenon, when the soil reacts with water, is more pronounced. To overcome such problems, soils can be treated or stabilized with many stabilization ways (mechanical, chemical, etc.). Such ways can amend the unfavorited soil properties. In this review, the pozzolanic materials have been selected to be presented and discussed as chemical stabilizers. The selected pozzolanic materials are traditional, industrial, or byproducts, ashes of agricultural wastes, and calcined-clay types. They are lime, cement, blast furnace slag, fly ash, silica fume, rice husk ash, sugarcane straw ash, egg ash, coconut husk ash, and metakaolin. In general, the stabilization of expansive soils with pozzolanic materials has an essential impact on swelling and Atterberg-limits and positively affects compaction and strength parameters. However, there is a wide range for the percentages of pozzolanic materials used as stabilizers. The content (15% to 20%) is the most ratios of the stabilizers used as an optimal percentage, and beyond this ratio, the addition of the pozzolanic materials produces an undesirable effect.

A Five Variable Refined Plate Theory For Thermal Buckling Analysis Uniform And Nonuniform Of Cross-Ply Laminated Plates

This research is devoted to investigating the thermal buckling analysis behaviour of laminated composite plates subjected to uniform and non-uniform temperature fields by applying an analytical model based on a refined plate theory (RPT) with five unknown independent variables. The theory accounts for the parabolic distribution of the transverse shear strains through the plate thickness and satisfies the zero-traction boundary condition on the surface without using shear correction factors; hence a shear correction factor is not required. The governing differential equations and associated boundary conditions are derived by using the virtual work principle and solved via Navier-type analytical procedure to obtain critical buckling temperature. Results are presented for: uniform and linear cross-ply lamination with symmetry and antisymmetric stacking, simply supported boundary condition, different aspect ratio (a/b), various orthogonality ratio (E1/E2), varying ratios of coefficient of uniform and linear thermal expansion (α2⁄α1), uniform and linearly varying temperature thickness ratio (a/h) and numbers of layers on thermal buckling of the laminated plate. It can be concluded that this theory gives good results compared to other theories.

Developing Crisis Management System for Construction Projects in Iraq

Construction is a complicated process that takes place in an almost uncontrollable environment. Although projects can be carefully planned in advance in principle, there is a chance that unforeseen events and crises can disrupt these plans, affecting project development. Because the initial investment expenditures in construction projects are so large, they may be quickly influenced by crises, resulting in significant financial losses. The 2014 financial crisis was one of the most prominent crises that Iraq faced, which significantly impacted various activities in general and the construction industry in particular. Despite the importance of crisis management systems, the researchers found a great lack of local studies looking at crisis management, specifically in the basic stages chosen for its development, which are before, during, and after a crisis. Therefore, an effective crisis management system has been developed consisting of 20 critical success factors with devising 59 actions that can be taken for each proposed criterion for each of the three stages of crisis.

Gas Adsorption and Storage at Metal-Organic Frameworks

Dry gas is considered one of the most environmentally friendly sources of energy. As a result, developing an efficient strategy for storing this gas has become essential. In this work, MOF-199 was synthesized and characterized in order to investigate the MOF-199 in dry gas adsorption using a built-in volumetric system (methane, ethane, and propane from Basrah gas company). The MOF-199 (metal organic framework) was synthesized using the solvothermal method at 373K for 24h, and then it was characterized. The dry gas adsorption on MOF-199 was studied under various conditions (adsorbent dosage, contact time, temperature, and pressure). The isothermal adsorption of the dry gas had been studied on MOF-199 using two types of models: Freundlich and Langmuir. The results of the isothermal adsorption shown corresponded to the Freundlich model with a correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.9426. Also, the rate of adsorption kinetic of the first and second-order was studied, and the results showed that the reaction rate was second-order.

Voltage Profile Enhancing Using HVDC for 132KV Power System: Kurdistan Case Study

Nowadays power systems are huge networks that consist of electrical energy sources, static and lumped load components, connected over long distances by A.C. transmission lines. Voltage improvement is an important aspect of the power system. If the issue is not dealt with properly, may lead to voltage collapse. In this paper, HVDC links/bipolar connections were inserted in a power system in order to improve the voltage profile. The load flow was simulated by Electrical Transient Analyzer Program (ETAP.16) program in which Newton- Raphson method is used. The load flow simulation studies show a significant enhancement of the power system performance after applying HVDC links on Kurdistan power systems. The bus voltages are significantly increased after connecting High Voltage Direct Current.

Efficient Energy Management for a Proposed Integrated Internet of Things-Electric Smart Meter (2IOT-ESM) System

In this work, an efficient energy management (EEM) approach is proposed to merge IoT technology to enhance electric smart meters by working together to satisfy the best result of the electricity customer's consumption. This proposed system is called an integrated Internet of things for electrical smart meter (2IOT-ESM) architecture. The electric smart meter (ESM) is the first and most important technique used to measure the active power, current, and energy consumption for the house’s loads. At the same time, the effectiveness of this work includes equipping ESM with an additional storage capacity that ensures that the measurements are not lost in the event of a failure or sudden outage in WiFi network. Then then these measurements are sent using the internet of thing (IoT) technology to Google Firebase cloud, where the electric consumer's service center is located to store, analyze the measured data, and detect cases of energy penetration when it exceeds 53 and the cases of the electrical energy theft if any below 20 and then take the appropriate decision about it. Finally, an electric smart metering application (ESM-app) is designed and implemented to read and pull data information from the Google firebase cloud and then send the electric bill to the end consumer, and sending alert messages to the thieves and electrical power hackers to prohibit them if something wrong has detected. In this work, an efficient energy management (EEM) approach is proposed to merge IoT technology to enhance electric smart meters by working together to satisfy the best result of the electricity customer's consumption. This proposed system is called an integrated Internet of things for electrical smart meter (2IOT-ESM) architecture. The electric smart meter (ESM) is the first and most important technique used to measure the active power, current, and energy consumption for the house’s loads. At the same time, the effectiveness of this work includes equipping ESM with an additional storage capacity that ensures that the measurements are not lost in the event of a failure or sudden outage in WiFi network. Then then these measurements are sent using the internet of thing (IoT) technology to Google Firebase cloud, where the electric consumer's service center is located to store, analyze the measured data, and detect cases of energy penetration when it exceeds 53 and the cases of the electrical energy theft if any below 20 and then take the appropriate decision about it. Finally, an electric smart metering application (ESM-app) is designed and implemented to read and pull data information from the Google firebase cloud and then send the electric bill to the end consumer, and sending alert messages to the thieves and electrical power hackers to prohibit them if something wrong has detected.

CFD Simulation Model of Salt Wedge Propagation

This study aims to numerically simulate the flow of the salt wedge by using computational fluid dynamics, CFD. The accuracy of the numerical simulation model was assessed against published laboratory data. Twelve CFD model runs were conducted under the same laboratory conditions. The results showed that the propagation of the salt wedge is inversely proportional to the applied freshwater discharge and the bed slope of the flume. The maximum propagation is obtained at the lowest discharge value and the minimum slope of the flume. The comparison between the published laboratory results and numerical simulation shows a good agreement. The range of the relative error varies between 0 and 16% with an average of 2% and a root mean square error of 0.18. Accordingly, the CFD software is quite valid to simulate the propagation of the salt wedge.

Serviceability of Post-fire RC Rafters with Openings of Different Sizes and Shapes

This study deals with the serviceability of reinforced concrete solid and perforated rafters with openings of different shapes and sizes based on an experimental study that includes 12 post-fire non-prismatic reinforced concrete beams (solid and perforated). Three groups were formed based on heating temperature (room temperature, 400 °C, and 700 °C), each group consisting of four rafters (solid, rafters with 6 and 8 trapezoidal openings, and rafter with eight circular openings) under static loading. A developed unified calculation technique for deflection and crack widths under static loading at the service stage has been provided, which comprises non-prismatic beams with or without opening exposed to flexure concentrated force. Two approaches were used to compute the deflection: The first attempt was conducted by using the moment of inertia for solid non-prismatic beam and reduced for those with openings by the ratio of residual rafter self-weight. The second was performed by using the moment of inertia of transformed cracked sections depending on the segmental rafter method. The crack width was determined using the ACI code's equation. The analytical and experimental results were evaluated and found to be in good agreement.

Review of the Kriging Technique Applications to Groundwater Quality

Kriging, a geostatistical technique, has been used for many years to evaluate groundwater quality. The best estimation data for unsampled points were determined by using this method depending on measured variables for an area. The groundwater contaminants assessment worldwide was found through many kriging methods. The present paper shows a review of the most known methods of kriging that were used in estimating and mapping the groundwater quality. Indicator kriging, simple kriging, cokriging, ordinary kriging, disjunctive kriging and lognormal kriging are the most used techniques. In addition, the concept of the disjunctive kriging method was explained in this work to be easily understood.

Effect of Seismic Loading on Variation of Pore Water Pressure During Pile Pull-Out Tests in Sandy Soils

Experimental model was done for pile model of L / D = 25 installed into a laminar shear box contains different saturation soil densities (loose and dense sand) to evaluate the variation of pore water pressure before and after apply seismic loading. Two pore water pressure transducers placed at position near the middle and bottom of pile model to evaluate the pore water pressure during pullout tests. Seismic loading applied by uniaxial shaking table device, while the pullout tests were conducted through pullout device. The results of changing pore water pressure showed that the variation of pore water pressure near the bottom of pile is more than variation near the middle of pile in all tests. The variation of pore water pressure after apply seismic loading is more than the variation before apply seismic loading near the middle of pile and near the bottom of pile and in loose and dense sand. Variation of pore water pressure after apply seismic loading and uplift force is less than the variation after apply seismic loading in loose sand at middle and bottom of pile.