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Go to Editorial ManagerModeling and simulation of non-linear quarter-car suspension system for two air spring models (traditional and dynamic new air spring) are contrasted in terms of (RMS) sprung mass acceleration, dynamic load coefficient, the vertical displacement, they are compared. Two and three (DOF) of the mathematical quarter models are implemented in MATLAB/Simulink platform. The Ride Comfort (RC), Dynamic Load Coefficient (DLC) and Road Handling (RH) responses are evaluated as objective functions respectively considering a vehicle speed at 72 km/h and road ISO Class B. The obtained results indicate that the vertical displacement, the (RMS) of the sprung mass acceleration, and dynamic load coefficient values with the new air model system decrease by 10.7 %, 30.6 %, and 13.49 % respectively, in comparison to a tradition suspension system, this one gives more comfort and effortless handling.
In this work, both energy and exergy analyses have been carried out on General Electric (GE) gas turbine unit found in Khor Al-Zubair gas turbine power plant located in Basra, Iraq. The analysis covers the ISO (international standards organization) operating conditions in addition to actual operating data recorded for one month in hot season July 2016. The feasibility of adopting a vapor compression cycle (VCC) for cooling the intake air is evaluated. Generally, the study reveals an obvious drop off for most plant performance characteristics while operating during the hot season. Energy and exergy analyses show that adopting the vapor compression cycle to enhance Khor Al-Zubair GE unit could improve the power output by 20% and 27% in case of part-load and full-load conditions respectively. Both of first and second law efficiencies could be improved by 3.5% at part- load and 9% at full load. The expected cooling load needed for the unit is in the range of 2697 to 3024.5 TR according to part- load and full-load operation respectively. Only total irreversibility of the unit is expected to increase in case of adopting VCC and this will not impair the improvement in second law efficiency of the unit. Among the unit components, combustion chamber has the largest computed irreversibility. Further improvement is recommended by utilizing the released heat energy to the atmosphere, which is characterized by significant work potential.
Due to the significance of structural sandwiches with hexagonal cores, utilized in various applications including aerospace, marine industries, and rail transport, and their design that imparts superior strength compared to conventional forms. In this paper, fracture behavior of these structural sandwiches was examined. Initially, the equivalent modulus of elasticity was empirically determined for many cell side lengths, utilizing the stress-strain relationship derived from tensile tests on hexagonal specimens. The fracture behavior was analyzed numerically using Abaqus software. The core and the complete sandwich structure were examined under various loads, including tensile and shear forces. The influence of the hexagonal cell dimensions on the fracture modules and the stress intensity factor (SIF), was assessed. It was observed that when the cell thickness remains constant while the side length varies, the SIF increases with the increasing in side length. This leads to the influence of stiffness, where it decreases with the increase in side length of the cell core. For instance, when the side length is 10, the stress intensity factor is 4.821, while when the side length is 20, the stress intensity factor becomes 22.35. A relationship was found between the stress intensity factor and thickness, similar to the tension case. However, here, a relationship between (kl) and the (a/tc) ratio was established.
Corrugated plates play very important role in various engineering applications. The occurrence of crack in the body of corrugated plate might results in catastrophic failure. In the present paper there are different profiles of corrugated plates (trapezoidal, sinusoidal and triangle) that are studied. In each profile the stress intensity factor and shape factor were calculated for various crack orientations, various corrugation angles and different curvature radius for the same profile. They are all subjected to different loading conditions using Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM). It is found the stress intensity factor when load applied parallel to corrugation direction is higher when load applied perpendicular to corrugation direction. Also found that the stress intensity factor increase by 115% when curvature radius increases with the load applied perpendicular to corrugation. This study also found and explained that the stress intensity factor increases slightly when the corrugation angle of triangle corrugated plate increases. In all cases studied, the trapezoidal corrugated plate shows the lower values of stress intensity factor compared to the sinusoidal and triangle corrugated plates.
Visual pollution refers to the negative impact of various environmental elements on the visual experience of individuals and the quality of the surroundings. This includes unsightly buildings and other man-made structures that disrupt natural beauty. The design of building facades plays a significant role in determining visual pollution. This study aimed to assess the impact of facade design on visual pollution by testing which facade design considerations most contribute to visual pollution in Peshawa-Qazi Street (100 m) in Erbil City. An online survey was conducted with 283 participants in six architectural departments within engineering colleges and other online engineering platforms in Erbil, Duhok, and Suleimani. Respondents included architectural students from the 3rd to 5th stage, academic staff, and professional architects. They rated the impact of individual facade elements, contextual integration, and other factors on visual pollution. A one-sample T-test was used to compare mean scores to a test value of (2.5). Results showed that all three categories of façade design considerations significantly increase visual pollution compared to the test value (p < 0.05). Considerations regarding the overall context of a facade had the most significant impact (mean of 1.93 higher than the test value), followed by other factors (mean of 1.79 higher) and individual elements (mean of 0.71 higher). To decrease visual pollution, it is recommended to the policymakers and municipalities to develop regulations, façade design guidelines and for architects to follow the principles of architectural form and composition regarding the integration of building facades with their surroundings, façade practical considerations, and refined composition of façade elements.
Corrugated plates play an important role in many modern constructions applications. Being the main components like piles or stiffeners means they quite often subjected to high levels of stresses. The presence of flaw or crack in the structure of loaded corrugated plate may lead to the situation of crack growth and then catastrophic failure. Extended Finite Element Method is used to avoid remeshing during crack growth simulation. In order to characterize crack growth in corrugated plate two methods were used which are virtual crack closure method and cohesive segments method. Two case studies were investigated in this study. In the first case the material behavior is assumed to be linear elastic, while in the second one the material behavior is assume to be elastic-plastic. The results obtained using the two methods showed a very good agreement both in linear elastic and elastic plastic cases.
In digital signal processing (DSP), FIR digital filter is very important device to deal with particular frequencies of a certain signal to be appropriate for some applications such as communications, sound equalizers, etc. In this paper, FIR filters are adopted to decompose the original sound signal into four signals. Each one is created by one FIR filter and each filter represents a narrow band of frequencies. The filter output is used to drive a certain variable speed drive (VSD) to control the speed of a water pump and light intensity of a colored lamp. This filter output signal is applied to the analog control voltage terminals of the VSD unit to control the frequency and magnitude of the voltage supplied to the lamp and pump. Thus, the heads of the water jets and the light intensity are controlled according to the analog control signals which are created by the FIR filters (The VSD is used to map the filter output into light intensity and water head by controlling the supplied voltage of them). The goal of this study is to design and simulate four sound harmonics bands produced by FIR filters to drive four VSDs which are simulated using V/F ratio constant method for musical fountain operation.
This paper presents the effect of fiber orientation angle on the stress intensity factor SIF for carbon epoxy composite plates with single-edge, center, and inclined cracks of varying lengths under tensile load. The stress intensity factor and shape factor were calculated individually for each case, with nine different fiber orientation angles computed using the extended finite element method XFEM concepts. It is found the stress intensity factor increases with increasing crack lengths while the shape factor decreases. In the case of single edge cracks, the SIF increases in the average value reached (173 %) for composite plates with different fiber orientation angles, while in the case of the center crack, the average value of SIF reaches (81 %). It was observed in this study that the increases in stress intensity factor and the decreases in the shape factor with different crack lengths were more stable in the composite plate with a fiber orientation angle of 75°. The higher values of SIF at an angle of 75° are because of the high probability of fiber slippage at 75° due to induced shear stresses in addition to the tensile stresses at the fiber-matrix interface. As a result, the crack tip has a high-stress intensity factor.
Advanced applications, such as aircraft manufacturing, require sophisticated materials. Composite materials are among these advanced materials and offer several advantages, including high strength and low weight. Given that these applications experience repeated loading, studying fatigue in composite materials is essential. This paper provides a comprehensive review of fatigue failure in composite materials, focusing on the types of fatigue loads, the characteristics of composite materials, and the damage mechanisms. Additionally, we discuss modelling and simulation techniques to understand fatigue behavior and the standards necessary for conducting fatigue failure testing in composite materials. The study of fatigue in composite materials is diverse, reflecting the materials' complexity, which varies across scales. Due to composite materials' heterogeneity, numerical modelling can be challenging. It often requires numerous constants that change with various factors, which can only be determined through experimental test. As a result, studying fatigue in composite materials can be costly.
This research concerns with the fracture behavior of reinforced concrete beams without shear reinforcement numerically. The software ABAQUS is adapted to simulate the crack propagation using the eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM), taking into account materials nonlinearities using concrete damage plasticity CDP criteria. XFEM is used to solve the discontinuity problems in the simulation. The maximum principal stress failure criterion is selected for damage initiation, and an energy-based damage evolution law based on a model- independent fracture criterion is selected for damage propagation. The traditional nonlinear finite element analysis is used to specify the crack initiation position, which is required to specify the crack location in the analysis of beams using XFEM. Three-dimensional reinforced concrete beam models are investigated subjected to three and four-point loading tests. Simply supported beams under the effect of applied static load are investigated. An elastic perfectly plastic model is used for modeling the longitudinal steel bars. The main variables considered in the study are beam depth and the shear span with beam length. The numerical results are compared with the available experimental results to demonstrate the applicability of the model. The XFEM provides the capability to predict the concrete member fracture behavior.
In this study, loading was carried out for several types of perforated plates, such as circular, rhombic and rectangular holes, where the holes were arranged in two types, namely straight arrangement and alternating arrangement. The stress intensity factor and shape factor were calculated for each case, taking into account the diameter of the holes. So, it is found the SIF increases significantly when the plate is perforated, and the same applies to the shape factor, also increases. In the case of circular holes, the increases in the average value of (SIF) reached to (80.88 %) when the plate was perforated with alternated arranged of circular holes, while the straight arrangement of circular holes the increases of average values of SIF reach to (67.55 %). Either in the case of rhombus holes: the SIF values are increases to (51.07 %) when the plate was perforated with the alternated arrangement, while in the straight arrangement of holes the (SIF) increase to (35.43 %). It was observed through this study, the increases of stress intensity factor and the shape factor with different crack lengths were more stable in the plate that perforated with an alternated arrangement of holes than the straight arrangement. The higher values of stress intensity factor obtained when the plates were perforated with circular holes, due to the circular shape has more stiffness, so the Absorption of force will be small Compared with the rhombus and rectangular shape that will be less stiffness which the absorption of strength is greater.