Articles in This Issue
Abstract
This article presents a numerical study on forced convection of nanofluid flow in a two-dimensional channel with trapezoidal baffles. One baffle mounted on the top wall of channel and another mounted on the bottom wall of channel. The governing continuity, momentum and energy equations in body-fitted coordinates are iteratively solved using finite volume method and SIMPLE technique. In the current study, SiO2-water nanofluid with nanoparticles volume fraction range of 0- 0.04 and nanoparticles diameters of 30 nm is considered for Reynolds number ranging from 100 to 1000. The effect of baffles height and location, nanopar-ticles volume fraction and Reynolds number on the flow and thermal fields are investigated. It is found that the average Nusselt number as well as thermal hydraulic performance increases with increasing nanopartiles volume fraction and baffle height but accompanied by increases the pressure drop. The results also show that the best thermal- hydraulic performance is obtained at baffle height of 0.3 mm, locations of baffles at upper and lower walls of 10 and 15 mm, respectively, and nanoparticles volume fraction of 0.04 over the ranges of Reynolds number.
Abstract
Responding quickly and economically to the diversification of customer needs has forced manufacturing companies adopting approaches to delivering low cost, high quality sustainable products based on finding a link between the design or the manufacturing processes and other key elements of sustainability; economic, environmental, and social. However, these approaches had limited success. The most likely reason for the lack of integration between the design and manufacturing stages of the product and complexity of addressing the above mentioned three key elements of sustainability due to existing of many variables in relation to design, manufacturing, locations, logistic operations and so on. Taking into account the required integration as well as the associated complexity of considering sustainability elements can lead to large space alternative solutions and it is more difficult to use only exact methods to the optimization of such problem. This paper presents a genetic algorithm (GA) approach aiming to optimize a high sustainability performance by designing a product and the corresponding manufacturing processes for that product. Process optimization is carried out in terms of the highest fitness function achieved where different objectives are to be optimized simultaneously. The proposed GA approach is applied to the industrial case example. The proposed approach can assist decision makers to help explain when justifying their decision on what are the best product design and its manufacturing processes to obtain high sustainability performance.
Abstract
Enhancing the hydrothermal performance of plate-fin microchannels heat sink (PFMCHS) promises smaller size and lighter weight, and then improve the heat removal in consequently increase the speed of electronic devices. In this numerical study, an innovative hydrothermal design of PFMCHS is suggested by inserting elliptic pins inside microchannels in different; aspect ratio (AR) of pin, pin number ratio (ψ) in order to optimize the hydrothermal design of this kind of heat sinks. The main objectives of this study are; investigating the effect of pins on the performance of PFMCHS by investigating the best geometry in the pinned-fin MCHS and which is higher, thermal or hydraulic performance of this kind of heat sinks and what is the optimal number of pins numerically and what about the pressure drop penalty in the proposed design, little, modest or high increase. It is seen that the thermal resistance of the pinned fin MCHS is about 50% lower, and pressure drop of it is much higher than that of the (PFMCHS) under the condition of equal wind velocity. Maximum mechanical fan power reduction obtained is about 57% for the pinned fin MCHS with ψ = 1 and Dh = 1 ×10-3 m compared to the corresponding original channel heat sink. To show the overall performance of the two parameters; aspect ratio (AR), pin number ratio (ψ), the overall JF factor is estimated and the concrete findings shows that the best hydrothermal performance is obtained at the greater aspect ratio which is around overall JF = 1.2. In addition, the trend of overall JF is going down with the pin number ratio, starting from 1.2 to 1.15. And the concrete findings show that pinned fin MCHS provides thermal performance of 1.42 times greater than the smooth one under the corresponding conditions when one pin is used in each channel
Abstract
The nonlinear finite element analysis has become an important tool, for the structural design and assessment of prestressed reinforced concrete members. However, design and assessment of torsion are still done with simplified analytical or empirical design methods. This paper pre-sents results from a numerical analysis using the ANSYS finite element program to simulate a prestressed concrete beams subjected to static and cyclic torque. The eight- node brick ele-ments SOLID65 are used for the idealization of concrete while the reinforcements are idealized by using 3D spar element LINK8. The steel plates are idealized by using three dimensional solid elements SOLID45. The results showed that the general behavior of the finite element models represented by torque- twist angle relationships show good agreement with the experimental results from the Abdullah's beams.
Abstract
The reducing of heat gain through the outer walls of the buildings in summer will contribute in reducing the air conditioning costs. This is one of the best features of design requirements nowadays. To achieve this, the phase change materials (PCM) can be used as an embedded material in the walls to reduce heat transfer. The paraffin wax is one of the common materials used as a PCM in the building walls. The paraffin wax is used in this study with (20%) volume percentage in the external layer of the treated wall. In the present work, the treated wall (with embedded wax in the wall) and non-treated walls have been experimentally investigated. Two Iraqi wall models were employed to run the experiments, whereby these models were exposed to an external heat source using (1000 W) projector for each model. The temperatures were recorded at different locations in the walls during the charging and discharging periods. The results showed that the temperature of the internal surface for the treated wall was lower than that of the non-treated wall at the end of the discharging period (6 hr) where the temperature difference between the treated and non-treated walls was reached (1.6℃).
Abstract
The problem of the spread of landmines and their remnants of war in Iraq in general and in the province of AL-Basrah is one of the existing issues that did not find successful solutions and steps to eliminate them and minimize the adverse effects and damage caused by them on the human and material property. This research aims to identify the areas of contamination by landmines and war debris to reach a clear vision that facilitates the development of solutions by the competent authorities through the preparation of a geographic database and a spatial database. All data and maps are collected, digitize them, conduct a range of statistical and spatial analyzes possible, and produce thematic maps
Abstract
Management of water resources become one of the most important subjects in the human's life. The water sustains life on earth, therefore; more care for water management is necessary. In the last years, studies show water use will be more in the world as result of rapid increase in population, industrialization, and urbanization etc. The evaporation losses from dam's reservoirs and lagoon form very huge losses in water resources. The annual evaporation depth losses in Iraqi Western Desert is about (2.25 -3) meter, this depth store the highest percentage of the small dams. Sub-surface storage reduces evaporation losses and maintains water quality by minimizing salt concentration. In present study, three tanks are used to simulate the subsurface reservoirs to study the effectiveness of underground storage on reducing the evaporation loss. Each tank have squares cross section tanks of (80) cm length and (40) cm depth and filled up to (34) cm with different graded soil (labeled as A, B with coarse soil, and D with fine soil) to simulate the storage below the ground. While the forth tank filled with water (labeled as C) to represent the reservoir of direct evaporation for comparison study. The present study considers three parameters that can controlled the evaporation from subsurface reservoirs: (a) temperature variation, (b) water table variation, and (c) material properties such as porosity. The field study continues for four months, it was started at Jun.11, 2016 and ended at Dec. 15, 2016 in the Erbil city at north of Iraq. The results showed evaporation losses are reduced by using subsurface storage reservoir with gravel in comparison with free surface evaporation. The evaporation losses are reduced about 46 % , 39% , 64% when the water table below gravel surface range from 5 to 10 cm , while at 20 cm depth of the water table the evaporation reduction is about (85 % to 86% 95%) from A, B and D tanks with porosity 0.65 ,0.67 and o.35 for A ,B and D tanks, respectively..
Abstract
The demand for strengthening structures becomes necessary when an increase in load is inevitable. For instance very little information is available on the time-dependent behaviour of strengthened concrete columns. Also, this is a primary factor hindering the widespread uses of FRP strengthening technologies in the construction implementations. This paper investigates the behaviour of strengthened concrete columns with FRP sheets subjected to long-term loading by non linear finite element analysis using ANSYS computer package. A three-dimensional finite element model has been used in this investigation. This study achieved a good agreement between numerical and experimental results, it was found that the percentage of error of specimens do not pass (5%) for creep strain. In addition, a parametric study was performed to study the effect of different factors on the behaviour of FRP strengthened concrete columns.
Abstract
The status of the infrastructure of the transport system and then mobility in the governorate of Anbar is deplorable. Therefore, it requires two types of solutions in two phases. This study concerned with the first phase, which is represented by solving the problem of the inadequacy infrastructure in terms of availability between the cities, and work to develop it toward being maximally connected. So, generally speaking this study aimed to facilitate mobility through this network, by improving the accessibility in term of connectivity. The analysis process in this study, have twin objectives: first, to determine how much new linkages we need for our network to be maximally connected as a first stage? Second, Building a legislative framework lends the weight for decision makers in transport agency to take tough decision built up on ranking the new proposed linkages according to their relative values in providing access to the network, and the increment in comparable nodal accessibility due to the new additions. So, there is need for more sensible decisions based on more accurate analysis for deciding the optimum priorities for the new linkages to take place in the stage of development implementation via legislative framework. Therefore, the analysis will deal with topological characteristics for a number of aspects by expressing the simple graph of the network in a matrix format. These aspects are simulated and measured through the matrices powering process and the principles of graph theory. However, in addition to reducing the time the vehicles stays on the road, the study results will assist to divert a large proportion of the traffic volumes concurrently with the implementation process, and this in turn will pave the way to precede the solution of the second phase inside the cities. Not to mention, the legislative framework will bases for the financial framework of the transport agency. Keywords: infrastructure inadequacy& development, accessibility and connectivity, graph theory, matrix representation &powering, new linkage, nodal accessibility , relative value ,optimum priorities (ranking) and Decision making(legislation).
Abstract
Nowadays, renewable energy sources are becoming further utilized to produce electricity. Fuel cell (FC) is one of the encouraging renewable and sustainable power resources as a result of its high power density and extremely low release. This paper presents suggestion and implementation of FC power system. So as to design a greatly efficient FC power system, proper DC - DC and DC - AC converters are needed. Among the different types of DC - DC converters, Interleaved Boost Converter (IBC) has been proposed as appropriate interface between FC and the next stage to transform the produced power energy (low voltage high current input into a high voltage low current output of the FC). 11-level Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) Multilevel Converter (MLC) is proposed for converting the DC output of the IBC to AC voltage to feed the load. MLC is chosen because it has many attractive features like high voltage capability, smaller or even no output filter, low voltage stress on load. Simulation of the proposed FC power system has been performed using MATLAB/SIMULINK..
Abstract
The thermal and acoustic isolation properties of unsaturated polyester composites reinforced by palm waste filler have been experimentally investigated. The composites have been prepared using hand lay-up technique with filler weight fraction of (0%, 3%, 5% and 7%). Three types of palm waste that (Date seed, old leaf bases and petiole) were ground and sieved separately to produce the filler with particle size ≤ 400µm. Thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and specific heat capacity were examined using Hot Disk thermal analyses. The acoustic isolation property examined in a sound-insulated box. The experimental results show that the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity of the composite specimens reinforced by seed or old leaf bases filler increased with increasing the fillers weight fraction. While increasing the petiole filler decreased the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity by 19% and 40% respectively at 5% weight fraction as compared with a pure unsaturated polyester material. So, the composite reinforced with petiole filler has improved the thermal insulation properties. The composites samples reinforced with palm waste show higher sound absorption in compared to the pure unsaturated polyester material. The sound absorption properties of composite reinforced with 7% old leaf bases filler improved by 15% and 23% at low and high frequency respectively rather than of pure unsaturated polyester material.