Engineering and Technology Journal

A hydrogeologic study has been adopted to conceptualize the concepts of groundwater levels lowering in swamped area of Tyass, middle of Iraq. 2D dimensional groundwater model and, mitigation model has been used to mitigate the aquifer against high salinity and chemical pollutants by the mitigation theory of heterogeneous subsurface media, which depends upon physical and mathematical derivation, evaluation of chemical pollutants and total dissolved salts (TDS) of subsurface water before and after mitigation process. The water table level was lowered up to 2.43m at the center of a pumping well of abstraction discharge (400m3/day) obtained after 2755days in steady state. The ions concentrations of iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), mercury (Cu), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and TDS in groundwater of 0.4, 3.25, 1.15, 0.004, 0.033 mg/liter and 7000ppm respectively were reduced to less than the allowable limits according to WHO of 0.3, 3, 1, 0.003, 0.01mg/liter, 1200ppm respectively by adding 0.2WD of fresh water from Hillah river and using maximum no. of pumping wells of (19 at April) after 240 months. The mitigation period was reduced to 120 months when the addition of solvent volume was doubled. Mitigation process in heterogeneous against high saline levels and chemical pollutants has been proven a good tool for the rehabilitation of polluted aquifers.

In this study sewage sludge ash (SSA) particles were used as filler in the polyester resin to fabricate particulate composites with various filler contents of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 wt%. The tensile, flexural, impact, hardness, chemical composition and scanning electron microscope tests wear done on the samples in accordance with ASTM standards. The results were improved at the particle content of 5 wt% for the tensile and flexural strength and then showed reducing trend with extra particle addition. Tensile and flexural modulus values of the particulate polyester composites significantly enhanced compared with the unfilled polyester composite. Energy Dispersion Spectrometry (EDS) results showed that the SSA contains elements and oxides which may increase adhesion force with polymer. In spite of the particle content of SSA that used with polymer to produce various structures for different applications was low, this study approved that using of SSA can protect the environment due to increasing the amount of SSA can affect the environment badly in addition to produce cheaper polymer composite for industrial applications.

The aim of the present study is to isolate and recognize calcium
carbonate-producing bacteria and to check these bacterial strains for use in
cement mortar to improve its properties such as strength and water absorption.
Bacteria were isolated from livestock soils were examined for urease producing
activity, the possibility to precipitate calcite and its activity to improve the
compressive strength. Based on the results, four isolates were selected and
identified. They were characterized as B. atrophaeus, B. subtilis, B. aryabhattai
and B. amyloliquefaciens. Experimental work was performed to evaluate the
effect of bacterial concentration in term of optical density (OD) on the
compressive strength. Bacterial cement mortar samples revealed improvement
in compressive strength and water sorptivity. The efficiency of bacterial strains
towards crack remediation was also investigated. Considerable increase in
compressive strength and complete cracks remediation was detected in cement
mortar samples cured with all bacteria isolate (using OD=1). This specifies the
suitability of these bacteria for use in cement mortar. The precipitate of calcium
carbonate inside the cracks of cement mortar by bacterial isolate was analyzed
under a scanning electron microscope (SEM)

Nitrate contamination is worldwide water pollution posing a major
health hazard to human and animal life. Challenges are being faced to get fresh
water for the areas having a low amount of usable water. This study aims to
asses and evaluates the feasibility of removing nitrate from groundwater by
using cheap approaches. A pilot-scale solar distillation membrane filter, was
designed and constructed for this study, the set up was designed into two
partitions: i) water heater and ii) membrane distillation. The effect of several
operating parameters such as feed and distillate temperature, nitrate
concentration, and pH, on water flux and nitrate removal efficiency, was
investigated. The results showed that 85 and 93 percent removal efficiencies for
nitrate and total dissolved solids, respectively. The effect of important
parameters of solar performance membrane filter distillation (SPMFD) process
including solar collector efficiency (𝜂𝑐
), gained output ratio (GOR) and
significant operating parameters containing feed and condensate temperature,
feed nitrate concentration and pH were studied in this work and it could be
concluded that water flux was increased exponentially with increasing feed
temperature, and under the same operating conditions, average water flux
changed from 9.52 to 34 kg/m2 per hour when temperature increased from 60
to 90 °C gradually. However, no significant effect was found by varying nitrate
and TDS concentration and pH on water flux. It can be concluded that
membrane distillation and solar desalination processes could be the efficient
methodologies to exploit in the large nitrate-affected rural areas of Iraq and its
surrounding with abundant sunlight, particularly during the critical dry season

This research aimed to study the removal efficiency of oil
pollutant from industrial wastewater by dissolved-air flotation (DAF)
with and without chemical coagulants. The sample test of wastewater is
discharged from Daura Refinery. The performance of dissolved air
flotation for example saturation pressure and recycle ratio were studied.
The industrial wastewater treated by DAF is carried out with two types
of chemical coagulants: Alum and Polyacrylamid. The treatment method
of wastewater by DAF with and without chemical coagulants and their
effect on the removal efficiency of oil, results were obtained at different
parameters such as saturation pressure (2,5-5.5atm) and recycle ratio
(20-50). It has been found the oil removal efficiency (R %) increases with
increase in recycle ratio (R.R) and saturation pressure (P). The
maximum oil removal efficiency in DAF unit without coagulants is found
to be equal to 60%, while with polyacrylamide coagulants is equal to 94,
90 %, while with alum coagulants is equal to 89, 82 % and with
combination of alum+ polyacrylamide coagulants is equal to 98.96,
95.5 % for initial oil concentration (Co) 50, 200 ppm respectively. The
experimental results were indicated the removal efficiency of oil by using
polyacrylamide as alone is more effective than adding alum but
combination of them, resulted improvement in removal efficiency. The
experimental results of DAF process with coagulants are expressed in
develop general empirical correlation by chemical cad in computer
program.

The use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) to replace part or
all of the natural coarse aggregates (NCA) in the production of concrete
has been on the increase. Such use helps in the protection of the natural
resources and in the reduction in the use o
f landfills.
The experimental
work consists of casting and testing ten rectangular simply supported
reinforced concrete beams of dimensions (1500*150*240) mm with
concentric point load at mid span as well as tests for control specimens to
determine the mechanical prope
rties of the concert. Five beams of these
ten beams were designed to fail in flexure and other five beams were
designed to fail in shear. Two beams were considering as a reference
beams using normal aggregate (NCA) and two beams were considering as
a refer
ence beams using recycled aggregate (RCA. The other six beams
were cast using recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) with steel fiber in
three different volumetric ratio (vf).The present investigation contains
three main variables: Coarse aggregate (normal and
recycled).
Transverse
reinforcement (with stirrups spacing 50 mm for flexure failure mode and
without stirrups for shear failure mode). Steel fiber (vf) = (0.5) %, (1) %
and (1.5) %.
In addition, constant longitudinal reinforcement ratio 0.012
.
Experiment
al results have generally showed that ultimate loads (Pu) of
beams made with RA are approximately close to the results of beams made
with NA but with decrease of values (14% and 21%) for flexural and shear
behavior respectively.
The ultimate load of fibrou
s concrete beams is
greater than beams without steel fiber by
(33%
-
50%) for shear behavior
and
(21%
-
35%) for flexure behavior.

During the last decade, tilapia species (Cichlidae: Teleostei) became
members of Iraqi fish fauna. They characterized with morphological similarity among
genera and species. That makes species differentiation not easily. Molecular methods
followed to differentiate between redbelly tilapia Coptodon zillii (Gervais, 1848) and
blue tilapia Oreochromis aureus (Steindachner, 1864) of the Euphrates River sector
at Al-Samawah city. RAPD-PCR method used to create the genetic fingerprints of two
tilapia fish species. Seven decamer primers (OPA08, OPA10, OPA13, OPA17,
OPA19, OPB08 and OPC02) used to amplify DNA fragments using PCR-RAPD
technique. Forty-four bands scored after electrophoresis on 2% agarose gel along
with molecular marker fragmented to each 100 base pair. The molecular weight of
bands was calculated using PhotoCapt-MW software. The volume of bands ranged
from C. zillii 168 bp to 2227 bp while they ranged from 62 bp to 2154 bp in O.
aureus. The results achieve the RAPD fingerprints of two tilapia species in Euphrates
River at for genetic Al-Samawa city and draw the genetic tree with the same species
from Shatt A-Arab River in Basrah city. The study concluded that there is the closest
relatedness among tilapia populations from Euphrates and Shatt Al-Arab Rivers. The
results proved that RAPD markers were efficient to generate DNA fingerprints of
tilapia fish species. Furthermore, the utilizing of the RAPD markers can differentiate
the two studied species. The present study may be the first genetic study on these
tilapia fish species. Moreover, this would be the baseline studies in the future. In
addition, this study would be valuable for conservation program and documentation
of identities of tilapia fish species in Iraqi inland waters

It is well known that environmental pollution by many heavy
metals is a serious problem to the natural ecosystem due to their toxic
effects. Most heavy metals such as Cu, Mn, Fe, and Zn are needed by
various organisms but at certain concentrations is very necessary for
both plants and animals. However, it has been suggested that ever green
plant trees can assist in controlling such pollution via various methods
where one method is the ability of these plant trees to absorb heavy
metals from contaminated soils. The current work was designed to assess
Cd, Mn and Pb plant content in two tree species (Eucalyptus sp. and
Albizia sp.) collected from Tourist Baghdad Island (TBI) situated in AlFh’hama region. It seems very obvious that these examined trees can be
regarded as certain heavy metals eliminator where eucalyptus tree has
shown considerable ability in removing all examined heavy metals which
were significantly higher than that of Albizia trees.

Air pollution is increased significantly nowadays due to various
industrial activities and car combustion emissions. In this work, data have been
collected from Al-Jadrya Monitoring Station (JMS). The effects of seasonal
variation on the pollutants concentration were examined. Furthermore,
relations of nitrogen oxides concentrations (NOx) were assessed during the first
hours of the working days. Three randomly days from each of January,
February, July and August have been taken to represent winter and summer
seasons, respectively. It has been found that concentrations of all examined
pollutants have not exceeded the acceptable limits. However, nitrogen oxides
(NOx) seem to be effected by seasonal variation where its concentration has
increased in June and August of the summer season. The concentrations of other
pollutants (SO2, CO, PM) have not been influenced by seasonal variations, and
they depend on the gaseous source emissions at different times of the year.
Hourly monitoring for nitrogen oxides (NOx) concentration showed increasing
in concentrations during the summer season, especially in the early hours of the
working days.

The study conducted to evaluate the ability of some aquatic plants in absorption and accumulate some heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Fe, and Pb) in their tissues from contaminated water in two sites of Shatt Al-Arab River, Province of Basrah/Iraq. Water samples were collected from two sites one of them north of Basrah (Gurna) and the other from Sindbad island middle site of Shatt Al-Arab river. The chemical analysis had been performed to find out water quality. A laboratory experiment had been conducted by using three types of aquatic plants which were; Common Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum L., Common Reed (Phragmites australis L, and Nut Grass (Cyperus rotundus L.). Two types of water qualities (Gurna and Sindbad island) from Shatt Al-Arab river in addition to distilled water as a control treatment. Plants were planted in glass containers filling with water samples to know the ability of plants to absorb heavy metals. Results showed that water quality, according to American salinity laboratory classification was C4S1 for both sites. Concentration of cadmium, copper, iron, and lead in Shatt Al-Arab river in both sites was (0.021, 0.034), (15.40, 23.50), (248.1, 181.0), and (15.5, 54.0) ugL-1 respectively. The preliminary analysis of heavy metals concentration in aquatic plants of Cd, Cu, Fe and Pb were 0.18, 14.5, 650.5, and 26.2 mg kg-1 of dry weight respectively. While the results were 0.45, 36.2, 1173.0, and 50.5 mg kg-1 dry weight respectively in the Ceratophyllum, Finally, in the common reed, the concentration was 0.2, 30.5, 1095.2, and 45.2 mgKg-1 dry weight for each heavy metals respectively. The removal efficiency of aquatic plants was varied with plant species and they took the following order common hornwort >common reed>nut grass.

Rubber-pad forming process of round sheet blanks into axisymmetric cups is studied by numerical and experimental approaches. In the experiments, round metal sheets are formed into the axisymmetric cups by pressing them between a rubber pad and a former block with desirable shape. To investigate influences of different parameters on the forming load, three former blocks with different shapes, blank material of low carbon steel (ST12) with thickness 0.5 mm ,three polyurethane rubber with different hardness (50,60 and 70) shore A and rubber pad having three different thickness (40,60 and 80) mm . ANSYS Workbench utilized to perform the numerical part of this research. The results showed that the produced cup height is significantly affected by rubber pad hardness.

The environmental and social impacts of a bricks factory was evaluated and the information's have been collected from a community questionnaire, as well as the analysis quadrilateral (SOWT) strategic for default modern bricks factory. The results devolve toward the manufacture of bricks with a modern and environment friend technology showed the extent of the community's awareness about contaminants posed by traditional brick plants. The analysis of the strategic quadrilateral project gave positive results in terms of overcome strength elements and of weakness in the internal environment and opportunities to overcome threats in the external environment for the modern factory. The study summarizes number of recommendations concerning, the most important use of modern technologies to reduce pollutants outside of the brick factories and alternatives and environmental monitoring plan for the project so as to ensure that the protection of the surrounding environment.

The resource of the dulcet water decreasing on our plant. Obstacles and problems that face water resources are the pollution and increasing of industrial wastes because of the human activities, lack of water resources in a place is considered dryness on well as unacceptable quality and quantity. The effect of outstretch and tide in estuaries of rivers increase the concentration of the salt in surface water. The city of Basra suffers from the lack of water discharge and high concentration of salt , wastewater, and the salt wedge ascending from downstream of Shat al – Arab river. The water decrease in quantities due to the decrease of water discharge in Shat al –Arab river from 1300 m3 /s to 1000 m3 /s . Now the water discharge reaches less than 40 m3 /s by the end of 2015. Shat al – Arab river suffers from the shortage of incoming water from rivers, which cause increase of salinity. Proposals are made for resolving some of the questions.