Iraqi Journal of Civil Engineering

The appropriate planning policies for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of devastated towns and cities have a role prominent and important in the activation of spatial development processes where appropriate to give the selected positive results in the reconstruction and improvement of the previous methods in this area. From this point the quest is considering the possibility of choosing planning policy objective and proposed for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the city of Ramadi to what came to him from the devastation and destruction as a result of the military operations that took place for the period from 2013 -2016 and the belief of the argument (requires the success of the military operations that accompanied the success of the processes of reconstruction being the mutually reinforcing) it was proposed three development policies is the policy of modernization and urban renewal policy and re-new residential neighborhoods and the policy of pairing between the old and new planning, taking into account the future expansion.The study found after using the method of quantitative analysis (method Analytical Hierarchy Process AHP) as a way diagram of the calendar that the third policy is a combination of old and new planning policy taking into account the urbanization of the city is the best among the proposed development policies, and having been using direct questionnaire segment of experts and specialists affairs planning as representing stakeholders and Shan has been used as a way of governing and the officer to know the credibility and reliability in the accuracy of the results of the quantitative hierarchical analysis.

This study presents an experimental research of Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) properties containing waste plastic fibers (WPF). Adding waste plastics which resulting from cutting PET bottles as fibers to SCC with aspect ratio (l/d) equal to (28). To illustrate the effects of WPFs on the SCC, the current study was divided into two parts, the first part shows the effect of adding plastic fibers on the properties of fresh SCC, which include the ability flow, spread, passing and resistance to segregation, and the second part to evaluate the properties of hardened (mechanical) destructive and non-destructive, which include compression strength, flexural strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity test.
One reference concrete mix was conducted and eight mixes contain WPF has been producing self-compacting concrete mixers containing a different volumetric ratio of plastic fibers (Vf) % percentages (0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2) %. Three cubes samples were prepared for testing the compressive strength, three prisms were prepared for the test modules of rupture, one cylinder were prepared testing the modulus of elasticity.
The experiments show that adding plastic fibers to SCC leads to an increase in the compression strength and modulus of rupture at 28-day as follows (42.30)% and (73.12)% respectively for mix ratio (1.5)% in comparison with the reference mix, which represent the best ratio of fibers, as such the results of testing the fresh concrete containing waste fibers showed that adding these fibers led a reduction in workability for SCC.

This study concern with a new technology to modified the compressive strength of the thermo brick which have a main role in construction field. This research using a new local cheap additives called (tar) which is available in Iraq (Kirkuk area). The experimental program have include three type of thermo brick available in local market (Iraqi, KSA, and Kuwaiti) and these type are common used in south area of Iraq especially Basrah City. The sample has exposed to the steam of tar in different temperature. Four affecting factor are studied carefully on compressive strength of brick including, tar , brick manufacture type, number of exposing faces of brick, and the age of brick after finishing expose of brick to the tar steam. The result shows maximum compressive strength conducted are 4.4 MPa when two faces expose to tar and two hours’ time of exposing ( one hour for each face) and the modified percentage was 62% compared with reference sample (KSA type). The improvement in compressive strength of Iraqi type and Kuwaiti were 27% and 45% respectively. Furthermore the improvement of compressive strength with same condition aforementioned but for one hour exposing time (half hour on each face) are 37.5%. The chemical properties also has conducted in this study.

The Light Falling Weight Deflectometer (LFWD) was developed to estimate the in-situ elastic modulus directly to the layers near the base as subgrade and subbase layers. The field tests were carried out on selected sections from landfill project within Anbar Province. Furthermore, Forty test sections have been constructed and tested at the Civil Engineering Department- University of Anbar. All sections were tested using the ZFG 3000 model - LFWD in companion with the Plate Load Test (PLT) which were used as reference measures. Regression analyzes were performed to determine the best correlation between the elastic modulus obtained from LFWD and PLT tests. ANN model was used to calculate Evd and compare the regression statistical model. It was found that the ANN model showed a higher performance than regression analysis in predicting Evd. Satisfactory correlations were obtained, which showed that LFWD could be a promising device for in-situ characterizing of subsurface and subgrade layers.

This paper presents the testing results and numerical results of nine reinforced concrete thick slabs with and without openings. All slab specimens have the same planar dimensions (1000mm×1000mm) with three different thicknesses of (120mm,100mm,and 80mm).The slabs resting on 4 corner steel columns and tested under concentrated static loading up to failure. These slabs were also analyzed using nonlinear finite element method assuming nonlinear material properties. From the experiments, it was found that, The presence of openings in slabs supported on their four corners decreases the strength and rigidity of slabs to about (12-23) % depending on the slab thicknesses and the shape of these openings. The slabs with (circular opening) recorded a reduction in ultimate strength to about(20) % from those with square openings having an equivalent opening areas. The yielding of main steel reinforcement occurred at load about 85% of the slab ultimate load. The ultimate loads predicted by ANSYS model have showed a good agreement with the experimental results.

Proliferated in recent years the desertification phenomenon, and the desert areas started expanding at the expense of green areas, which affected the environment.
This research focused on studying the desertification and its changes regarding to the time, through using different multi band satellite images for the area of interest in different times and studying the changes appear to the land cover and calculating the areas of each parameter to make the comparison for each environmental parameter (soil, agriculture, and water).

The structural behavior of composite steel concrete beams with long term deflection was investigated, taking in considerations several variables including degree of shear connectors 50%, 75%, 100%, and type of connectors including headed and hooked studs smooth or deformed. Five composite steel-concrete beams were tested each consist of steel section W12x35 and 300x100 concrete slabs. The composite beams were tested under uniformly distributed loads for different time interval up to 180 days. The results showed that the degree of interaction have significant influence on the long- term behavior of the composite steel concrete beam . When the degree of interaction decreased from 100% to 75% then to 50% the maximum long-term mid span deflection increased about 35.1% and 65.9% respectively at 180 days after loading. Also, the end slip increased about 67.5% and 112.4% respectively at 180 days after loading. The results showed that the type of the used shear connectors has slight influence on the long-term behavior of the composite steel concrete beams. For certain degree of interaction (75%)with using headed and hooked studs smooth or deformed the maximum long-term mid span deflection decreased about 7.1% and 11.7%at 180 days after loading, and the end slip decreased about 4.8% and 12.5% at 180 days after loading.

Activated sludge process is considered one of the most common and highly effective methods used in aerobically biological treatment systems. The design of such systems is usually based on the biological kinetic approach considerations. The present study is concerned in determining the biological kinetic of the last part of Diyala River at AL-Rustimiyah WWTP's, Baghdad, Iraq. A completely mixed continuous flow lab-scale reactor without recycling was used for this purpose. Various detention times were adopted during the experimental work ranging from 0.723 to 3.809 days. Influent and effluent BOD5, MLVSS and MLSS for the aeration tank, among other tests were performed at different detention times, after reaching the steady state conditions, in order to generate the required data for bio-kinetic coefficients. The biological kinetics k, Y, Kd, and Ks for the last part of Diyala River at AL-Rustimiyah WWTP's were found to be 5.68 d-1, 0.75, 0.06 d-1, and 70 mg/l, respectively. These values were compared with the bio-kinetics of different types of wastes and were found to be within the typical ranges of bio-kinetic parameters for activated sludge process treating domestic wastewater, which indicates that the water at the river reach of interest is rather wastewater than pure river water.

This study program has been arranged to test the behavior of punching shear for concrete slabs reinforced by an embedded glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcements. However, the shear resistance of concrete members in general and especially punching shear of two-way RC slabs, reinforced by GFRP bars has not yet been fully investigated. Seven decades ago, many researches have been carried out on punching shear resistance of slabs reinforced by conventional steel and several design methods were created. However, these methods can be not easily applied to FRP-reinforced concrete slabs due to the difference in mechanical properties between (FRP) and steel reinforcement. sixteen specimens are to be cast in lab within two categories of reinforcements such as GFRP and equivalent steel reinforcements. In addition, based on experimental data obtained from the author’s study and ACI model, the paper performed an evaluation of accuracy of proposed model. The results from the evaluation show that the ACI-formula gave inaccurate results with a large scatter in comparison with the test results of this study. A new design formula can be proposed for more accurate estimation of punching shear resistance of (GFRP) specimens.

A novel electro-Fenton process based on Pd-catalytic production of H2O2 from H2 and O2 has been studied and examined recently for altering and degrading organic contaminants in different types of wastewaters. The study endeavors to synthesize an integrated catalyst by loading Pd onto the clay mineral,nontronite, (Pd/NTm) so that H2O2 and Fe(II)‏ can be produced simultaneously in the electrolytic system. In an undivided electrolytic cell, rhodamine B, a probe organic contaminant, is degraded by 93% within 60 min under conditions of 50 mA, 1 g/L Pd/NTm, pH 3 and 20 mg/L initial concentration. A distinct mechanism, reductive dissolution of solid Fe(III) in nontronite by atomic H chemisorbed on Pd surface, is responsible for Fe(II) ‏ production from Pd/NTm.