Evaluating The Effects of Using Superplasticizer RHEOBUILD® 600 on The Workability and Compressive Strength of Normal Concrete

لقد تم إجراء هذه الدراسة كمحاولة لدراسة تأثير جرعة الملدن المتفوق بالنسب التالية (0.5، 0.7، 0.9، 1.1 و 1.2) على سلوك  الخرسانة  اضافة الى ذلك تقدير أفضل نسبة يمكن اضافتها من الملدن المتفوق . و تم اجراء الاختبارات التجريبية على العينات في الحالتين الطرية و الصلبة للخرسانة و تم مقارنة النتائج مع  عينة خالية من المضاف (الملدن المتفوق). التجارب المختبرية التي تم اعتمادها في هذا البحث هي كالتالي: اختبار الهطول, اختبار الانضغاط , حيث بينت النتائج ان زيادة نسبة الملدن المتفوق في الخرسانة يؤدي الى تحسن في خواص الخرسانة. النتائج المختبرية بينت زيادة بالغة بمقاومة الانضغاط في العينات التي تحتوي على الملدن مقارنة مع العينة التي تخلو منه, وازدادت قوة الانضغاط بحوالي (47.43)٪ مقارنة مع المزيج الطبيعي. كما اظهرت النتائج التجريبية ان النسبة المثلى الملدن المتفوق هي (0.7٪)This study has been undertaken as an attempt to examine the use of different super plasticizer dosage (0.5, 0.7, 0.9, 1.1 and 1.2) percentage of the weight of cement on the performance of the concrete and estimate the best ratio of super plasticizer. The laboratory experiments for both plastic and hardened properties of concrete for concrete mix grade 25 were determined and the effects were contrasted against normal concrete mixture. The tests performed for this study are slump test and compressive strength test .The findings demonstrate that with the raise of superplasticizer dose in concrete will lead to an improvement in the properties of concrete. The experimental calculations display a significant increase in the rate of compressive strength in comparison with the normal mix. The compressive strength increased about (47.43) % in comparison with the normal mix. Also, the experimental results showed the optimum ratio of the superplasticizer is (0.7)% of the weight of cement

Sustainable heating system by infrared radiators

Maintaining the optimum temperature in the living quarters is the key to a comfortable stay. Due to the lack of a central heating system or in the event of its insufficiency, they resort to the installation of additional heat sources. There is a wide range of devices on the market with different operating principles, hence the difficulty of which is better - a convector or infrared heater. A comparative analysis of devices will help you make the right choice. Asking the question of which is better a convection heater or an infrared heater, one must decide on its role in heating the house. It is better to use them as additional equipment with an existing heating system. One of the effective sources of additional heating are infrared radiators. Its principle of operation is based on infrared radiation, which provides a quick and qualitative increase in temperature in any part of your apartment. Today, more and more people prefer infrared radiators. From the usual electric convector, they differ in that they heat not the air in the room, but hard surfaces (floors, walls) and objects, and these, in turn, leak heat into the surrounding space. So, the entire room is heated up unnoticeably

Evaluation the influence of steel-fiber on the concrete characteristics

The impact of steel fibers on the engineering characteristics of concretes were explored experimentally in this work. Steel fibers of 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 percent by volume fraction were applied to concretes mixture with water/cements (W/C) proportions of 0.43 to accomplish this. There have been a total of 24 cubic specimens produced for compressive strengths testing, 24 cylindrical specimens for splitting tension strengths testing, and 12 cubic specimens for toughened unit weight testing. The experimental findings reveal that applying 0.5 percent to 0.9 percent of fibers made of steel to concrete boosts both compressive and tension strengths concurrently when compared to ordinary concretes; however, there is no discernible gain in hardened unit weight with increased fiber amounts

Application of the ANOVA method in the optimization of a thermoelectric cooler-based dehumidification system

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).In recent studies, Thermo-Electric Coolers (TEC) have been utilized for dehumidification purposes, which is mainly based on the extraction of moisture from humid atmospheric air. The reviewed literature showed that the rate of water collection from the TEC-based system can be affected by various parameters such as the module’s input voltage, the heat sink orientation, and tilt angles. In this research, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine the significance of these factors and their interaction within the system on the TEC-based dehumidification system. Four levels were investigated for both, the Peltier’s input voltage and the rotation angle, and three levels for the tilt angle. This study indicated the significance of the studied factors and their interactions within the dehumidification system along with performing an overall numerical optimization. The experiments were conducted under the same working conditions in an enclosed environment to minimize errors. According to the overall numerical optimization, which was validated experimentally, the optimum system performance was predicted to be obtained at approximately 6.8V Peltier input volt, 65° rotation angle, and 90° tilt angles, with predicted optimum productivities of 0.32278 L/kWh and 13.03 mL/hr. For the same set of parameters, the variation between the experiment and the numerical optimization was less than 4%. The experiments show that when optimizing water collection rates for thermoelectric cooling heat sinks​ under high humidity conditions, the orientation of the heat sink should be considered.Peer reviewe

Thermohydraulic analysis of covalent and noncovalent functionalized graphene nanoplatelets in circular tube fitted with turbulators

© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Covalent and non-covalent nanofluids were tested inside a circular tube fitted with twisted tape inserts with 45° and 90° helix angles. Reynolds number was 7000 ≤ Re ≤ 17,000, and thermophysical properties were assessed at 308 K. The physical model was solved numerically via a two-equation eddy-viscosity model (SST k-omega turbulence). GNPs-SDBS@DW and GNPs-COOH@DW nanofluids with concentrations (0.025 wt.%, 0.05 wt.% and 0.1 wt.%) were considered in this study. The twisted pipes' walls were heated under a constant temperature of 330 K. The current study considered six parameters: outlet temperature, heat transfer coefficient, average Nusselt number, friction factor, pressure loss, and performance evaluation criterion. In both cases (45° and 90° helix angles), GNPs-SDBS@DW nanofluids presented higher thermohydraulic performance than GNPs-COOH@DW and increased by increasing the mass fractions such as 1.17 for 0.025 wt.%, 1.19 for 0.05 wt.% and 1.26 for 0.1 wt.%. Meanwhile, in both cases (45° and 90° helix angles), the value of thermohydraulic performance using GNPs-COOH@DW was 1.02 for 0.025 wt.%, 1.05 for 0.05 wt.% and 1.02 for 0.1 wt.%.Peer reviewe

Towards Net Zero Carbon Economy: Improving the Sustainability of Existing Industrial Infrastructures in the UK

To comply with the new net zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) target set by the United Kingdom government by 2050, different sectors including the industrial sector are required to take action to achieve this target. Improving the building envelope and production of clean energy on site are among the activities that should be considered by businesses to reduce their carbon emissions. This research analysis the current energy performance and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of an industrial building in Liverpool, UK utilizing the Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IESVE) software modeling. Then it has proposed some methods for improving the current performance and reduce the carbon footprint of the building. The results indicated that the installation of wall and floor insulation could decrease the energy usage and CO2 emissions of the building by about 56.39%. Additionally, the production of clean energy on site using solar photovoltaic (PV) panels could reduce the annual CO2 emissions by up to 16%. Furthermore, this research provided some figures about offsetting the rest of CO2 emissions using different international offsetting schemes to achieve carbon neutrality of the building

Identification and investigation of corrosion behavior of electroless composite coating on steel substrate

Because it is essential to avoid toxicity and corrosion in order to enhance the steel components and their aesthetic magnitude used in our everyday life, there has been an increased interest in the electroless field, particularly with regard to the application of nickel-phosphor on steel substrates. In this work, electroless process by nickel low phosphor solution and added titania particles (10–30  µm) to amount of coating solution (0, 5, and 10  g/L) with different coating times (30 and 60 min). Then, many tests were conducted, involving coating thickness, surfaces roughness, hardness, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and linear polarization tests in salt solution that were carried out for substrate and coating layers. Hardness indicates that the mechanical characteristics of the applied coatings with incorporated (TiO2) reinforcement were far more superior to its own matrix as well as noncomposite nickel coating. The polarization curves conducted by potentiodynamic technique for different coating layers with 3.5% NaCl a medium and find all data by computerize, which shows that the addition of TiO2 extract improved the corrosion rate (67.58%) than uncoating specimen

Synchronization and different patterns in a network of diffusively coupled elegant Wang–Zhang–Bao circuits

Synchronization in coupled oscillators is of high importance in secure communication and information processing. Due to this reason, a significant number of studies have been performed to investigate the synchronization state in coupled circuits. Diffusive coupling is the simplest connection between the oscillators, which can be implemented through a variable resistor between two variables of two circuits. The Chua’s circuit is the most famous chaotic circuit whose dynamics have been investigated in many studies. However, Wang–Zhang–Bao (WZB) is another chaotic circuit that can exhibit exciting behaviors such as bistability. Thus, this study aims to investigate the cooperative dynamics of the WZB circuit in its elegant parameter values. To this issue, first, we explored the dynamic behavior of the elegant WZB circuit using the bifurcation diagrams, the Lyapunov exponents, and the basins of attraction. Based on the results, we found the range of the bifurcation parameter and the initial conditions wherein the system is bistable. Subsequently, setting the parameters in the monostable region, we studied the synchronization state of two diffusively coupled WZB circuits analytically and numerically. Consequently, we used master stability functions and temporally averaged synchronization error as the analytical and numerical tools to explore the synchronization state. Then we numerically examined the synchronization state in a network of 100 nonlocally coupled WZB oscillators. As a result, we found imperfect chimera and phase synchronization in the studied network before getting synchronized

Multi-strategy Slime Mould Algorithm for hydropower multi-reservoir systems optimization

The challenge to determine the best policies for hydropower multiple reservoir systems is a high-dimensional and nonlinear problem, making it challenging to attain a global solution. To efficiently optimize such a complicated solution, the creation of a high-precision optimization algorithm is critical. Hence, this research proposes a Multi-strategy Slime Mould Algorithm (MSMA) to determine the optimal operating rules for a complicated hydropower multiple reservoir prediction problem. The MSMA system proposed employs an effective wrap food mechanism to strengthen local and global capability; an enhanced solution quality (ESQ) to promote solution quality; and the interior-point method to implement an influential exploitation mechanism. The numerical testing of 23 test functions demonstrates the efficiency of the MSMA algorithm in solving global optimization issues. The newly developed method is then used to optimize the operation of a complex eight-reservoir hydropower system, with the proposed MSMA approach resulting in 0.999% of an ideal global solution, according to the optimal findings. The results of the multi-reservoir system show that proposed MSMA method was able to generate about 16.6% more power than the SMA. Consequently, the recommended method outperforms the other well-known optimization methods for maximizing power in the multi-reservoir system. Finally, this study also provides a useful tool for optimizing the complicated hydropower multiple reservoir problems

Deep clustering of cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning to optimize multi chiller HVAC systems for smart buildings energy management

© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2022.105689Chillers are responsible for almost half of the total energy demand in buildings. Hence, the obligation of control systems of multi-chiller due to changes indoor environments is one of the most significant parts of a smart building. Such a controller is described as a nonlinear and multi-objective algorithm, and its fabrication is crucial to achieving the optimal balance between indoor thermal comfort and running a minimum number of chillers. This work proposes deep clustering of cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (DCCMARL) as well-suited to such system control, which supports centralized control by learning of agents. In MARL, since the learning of agents is based on discrete sets of actions and stats, this drawback significantly affects the model of agents for representing their actions with efficient performance. This drawback becomes considerably worse when increasing the number of agents, due to the increased complexity of solving MARL, which makes modeling policy very challenging. Therefore, the DCCMARL of multi-objective reinforcement learning is leveraging powerful frameworks of a hybrid clustering algorithm to deal with complexity and uncertainty, which is a critical factor that influences to the achievement of high levels of a performance action. The results showed that the ability of agents to manipulate the behavior of the smart building could improve indoor thermal conditions, as well as save energy up to 44.5% compared to conventional methods. It seems reasonable to conclude that agents' performance is influenced by what type of model structure.Peer reviewe