bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Assessment of air quality index (AQI) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Authors: Hassan R , Rahman M , Hamdan A 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Air pollution is increasingly becoming a main environmental matter in the world. It can impact public health, weather, and climate. Riyadh's air pollution poses significant environmental and health risks. The study aimed to analyze Riyadh's current and future air quality by using AQI. Main six air pollutants are considered, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter (PM), ground level ozone (O3), and carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO). Eleven air quality stations located throughout Riyadh assess the concentration of six standard pollutants daily. A comparison of air quality in Riyadh was done at the local, regional, and international levels. Furthermore, diverse factors such as meteorological seasons, working periods, and the COVID-19 period are taken into account. Industrial emissions, as well as contributions from mobile sources and wind-blown dust, appear to be the principal pollutant sources affecting Riyadh. The measured air quality components for all contaminants were found to be below standard. PM poses the greatest damage to the city's human health of all the pollutants studied. It can be found in practically all locations of air quality stations, even though CO and O3 levels in the city are not at alarming levels.
Gaussian process regression model for the prediction of the compressive strength of polyurethane-based polymer concrete for runway repair: A comparative approach
Authors: Haruna S.I. , Zhu Han , Umar I.K. , Shao Jianwen , Adamu Musa , Ibrahim Yasser E. 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Polyurethane (PU) composites have increasingly been used as construction materials to maintain civil engineering structures such as road pavement, runway, parking area, and floor systems in buildings. This study developed polyurethane polymer concrete (PC) mixtures by mixing aggregate-to-PU resin at 0.9: 0.1 and 0.85: 0.15 ratios by weight. The Machine Learning algorithms, including Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), Classification and Regression Tree (CART), and Support Vector Regression (SVR) model were employed to predict the compressive strength of PUPC mixtures as a repair material. The models were trained on the dataset of flexural strength (MPa), density (kg/m3), and PU composition (%), applied as input variables. The result revealed that the compressive stress-strain curves of PU-based polymer concrete exhibit linear elastic behavior under compression. The developed models demonstrate high prediction accuracy of PUPC’ strength. The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) was used to check the performance of each model, and the result obtained showed that the GPR model predicted the compressive strength with the highest accuracy with an NSE-values of 0.9619 and 0.9585 at the training and testing phase, respectively. The finding in this study could offer valuable insight into using these proposed models for compressive strength prediction of PU-based polymer concrete
Sustainable Solution for Deteriorated and Aged RCC Structures: A Review of Buildings, Bridges and Pavements
Authors: Alam M S , Arifuzzaman M. , Islam M K , Al-Fuhaid A F , Al-Mamun A 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Sustainability is an important topic worldwide. The sustainable design will reduce the consumption of energy, water, land and raw materials. This ought to be taken into account when designing new structures and strengthening and renovating of existing deteriorated structures. This paper deals with the sustainable solution for the strengthening and renovating of the deteriorated or impaired structures. This is usually done through the use of FRP strips / sheets or bars that is bonded outside the member. Many researches have been conducted on this technique to observe its behaviour and ultimate strength. The materials used in research are steel, glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP), carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP), aramid fibre reinforced polymer (AFRP) sheets or bars. These were used as side bonding, U-jacketing and wrapping of the members. A significant improvement in strength was observed in the strengthened members. Accordingly, these techniques have been suggested as a sustainable solution. Based on the investigations, different countries propose different design codes and standards. Some of them provide reliable predictions, but more research is needed for an accurate and consistent predictive model.
Use of Waste Ferrochrome Slag as a Sustainable Building Material for Extreme Environments
Authors: Sohel K M A , Al-Jabri K , Islam M Z , Al-Shereiqi A A R 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Ferrochrome slag is an industrial by-product material extracted during the production process of ferrochrome alloy, which is mostly used in the stainless steel industry. Large quantities of ferrochrome slag are generated annually from the steel companies in the Sultanate of Oman. The vast majority of the quantities are not used in any application and are disposed of without being reused, posing a threat to the local environment. There has been an increasing emphasis in recent years on the use of different waste materials as construction materials, which may help to alleviate environmental and ecological challenges. The physical, mechanical, chemical and thermal properties of ferrochrome slag (FCS) are favorable to be used in concrete for extreme environments such as high temperature and corrosive environments. In this study, the effect of using ferrochrome slag as a substitute for natural fine and coarse aggregates (incremental range from 25% to 100%) on the strength of concrete at elevated temperatures (ranging from 200°C to 1000°C with 200°C intervals) was investigated. Acid resistance of FCS concrete was also investigated. It is found that the inclusion of FCS enhances the compressive strength of the concrete. The thermal properties of FCS aggregate positively affect the fire resistance of the FCS concrete. The FCS concrete shows better performance in an aggressive environment than conventional concrete. Therefore, waste ferrochrome slag may be an alternative option to be used as green coarse and fine aggregates in the production of concrete.
Study on Wetted Soil Geometry of a Negative Pressure Irrigation (NPI) System
Authors: Moniruzzaman S. M. , Fukuhara Teruyuki , Arifuzzaman Md. , Rahman Muhammad 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
The limited water resource is a main constraint on agricultural production in arid and semi-arid regions like Saudi Arabia. The Negative Pressure Irrigation (NPI) is one of the attractive irrigation systems since it consumes less water, leads irrigated water down up to root zone, minimizes evaporation and prevents deep percolation than other traditional irrigation systems. The aim of this paper is to get information on the soil water dynamics, which is very essential for the design and operation of the NPI system. With this view, the water balance experiment was carried out in the NPI system for different time intervals for three different negative pressures ( Pn
= -0.02m, -0.07m and -0.10m). After finishing the experiment, the dry soil was removed from the column to measure the configuration of wet soil. This geometry of wetted soil represents the soil water dynamics and the wetted soil volume represents the water stored in soil at different negative pressures and elapsed time. A good relationship was obtained between the wetted soil geometry, time and negative pressure. This study reveals that for a certain negative pressure and time interval, the depth, width and volume of wetted soil can be predicted.
Compressive Strength Development of Dune Sand Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) Under Different Curing Conditions
Authors: Ahmed S , Abed F , Mannan M A 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Reactive powder concrete (RPC) is a special type of concrete with remarkable properties, particularly compressive strength. Some of its main disadvantages include its high cement and SF content, fine quartz with a preferred size of 150 μm - 600 μm, and low water-to- binder ratio. These characteristics increase the cost of RPC production and affect sustainable development. Because of this, researchers have resorted to exploring substitutes to cement and quartz to produce an eco-friendlier type of RPC. Accordingly, this research aims to study the compressive strength development of RPC prepared with dune sand and supplementary cementitious materials (SCM). Three main factors were investigated including 1) replacing cement with 30% ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), 2) using ternary blends of GGBS and fly ash (FA) in RPC, and 3) applying 100°C hot air curing (HAC) to RPC. Overall, the results showed that the compressive strength of HAC and water cured specimens exceeded 120 MPa after 12 hours and 28 days, respectively. Moreover, the compressive strength development of the mixes incorporating SCM was slower than that of the control mix incorporating cement only under HAC conditions.
A Comparative Study On The Seismic Performance Of Multi-storey Buildings With Different Structural Systems
Authors: Ahmed Mohammed Mudabbir , Manzoor Khaja Musab 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
The increasing need of shelter in urban cities due to overpopulated spaces and land inadequacy has forced people to limit their needs and spaces. High-rise buildings are the best solution for providing people space for living and to work on, as the buildings are getting higher and slender, they are exposed to different loading condition, which leads the building to experience higher lateral deformations. With the help of different structural systems, the lateral stiffness of the buildings can be improved, there are many structural systems introduced for the high-rise structures which can provide the buildings adequate strength and stability against lateral loading. This paper examines behaviour of Special Moment Resisting Frame System with shear wall, Outrigger Core Belt Truss Structural System and Braced Frame System on a 30 storey building under worst seismic conditions in India i.e. Zone V. To understand effectiveness of the structural systems subjected to lateral loads, three different structural system are modelled using 3D finite element software ETABS 2018, all the models are subjected to the same loading conditions with same geometrical dimension and typical storey height. Comparison is examined on the basis of different parameters like Modal Mass Participation, Base shear, storey shear, Time period, Lateral displacement, storey drift, storey stiffness, and performance points. It was observed by the dynamic analysis method i.e., response spectrum analysis, and non-liner static analysis, the parameters which were compared between three structural system observed that building with outrigger core belt truss system performs better than Special Moment Resisting Frame + Shear Wall and Braced Frame Structural System.
Development of green and sustainable ultra-high-performance concrete composite reinforced with date palm fibers
Authors: Althoey Fadi , Hakeem Ibrahim Y. 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
In a sustainable approach, it is essential to reduce the volume of agricultural waste materials in order to minimize environmental and health concerns. To pursue this goal, agricultural wastes, mainly date palm fibers (DPFs), was used as a partial replacement of conventional steel fibers to produce ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC). The UHPC has been used to describe a steel-fibers-reinforced cementitious composite with a very low water-binder ratio. It is one of the most significant breakthroughs in concrete technology in the 20th century due to its outstanding mechanical performance, such as compressive strength over 150 MPa and flexural strength over 30 MPa. The cost of UHPC is known to be significantly higher compared to ordinary reinforced concrete because it requires large quantities of steel fibers. This paper aims to study the feasibility of utilizing DPFs as a partial replacement of steel fibers to produce green, low-cost and sustainable UHPC. The process of extraction and treatment of the DPFs before incorporating it into the mix design was discussed. Several concrete samples were prepared with different weight percentages of DPFs as a partial replacement of steel fibers (from 0% to 25 wt.%). Compression strength, flexural strength, water absorption, and fresh/hardened densities were experimentally investigated. The morphology and the bonding interface between the fibers and cementitious composite were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results reveal that the DPFs has the potential to be utilized to produce UHPC with comparable performance to the traditional UHPC that is normally reinforced with steel fibers.
Stability analysis of an unsaturated pond ash slope subjected to rainfall
Authors: Srikanth Chitti Satya Sundara Uday , Ramaiah B J , Murali Krishna A 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
In the present study, stability analysis of an unsaturated homogenous pond ash slope subjected to rainfall using the limit equilibrium method based n Bishop and Morgenstern-Price methods under steady-state seepage and transient seepage conditions was carried out. Seepage and stability analyses were carried out using SEEP/W and SLOPE/W models, respectively. The factor of safety (FoS) in the case of the unsaturated pond ash slope was observed to be higher than the saturated slope. The effect of slope geometry, rainfall intensity, anisotropy in permeability, and provision of drains on slope stability were investigated. It is observed that with an increase in rainfall infiltration, there was a tendency of surficial failure when the rate of infiltration is higher than the saturated permeability in the unsaturated pond ash slope. The study assumes importance related to the stability of slopes constructed with coal ash in the context of ever-growing requirements of electricity in the country, slope failures due to extreme weather events associated with climate change, and the requirement of sustainable alternatives, theories, and technologies to tackle the coal ash waste produced.
Designing the temporary dental clinic in the Covid-19 global pandemic
Authors: Rahmayati Y , Vanini F , Rahmayani L , Hendarti R , Aghamdi W , Andriany P , Sundari I , Novita C F , Sofya P A 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Covid-19 pandemic has directed hospitals to concentrate services for patients who are positive or still in undefined status. Some countries are even forced to build temporary structures or utilize multifunctional buildings such as sports/public halls. On the other hand, hospitals still have to keep performing other routine services and this becomes a challenge for them. When global attention nowadays focuses more on how hospitals serve the Covid-19 cases, this research proposes another side of healthcare service needed by people in the pandemic, which is the dental clinic. The spread of Covid-19 through droplets puts both dental patients and practitioners at risk target of Covid-19 transmission. Therefore, particular standards and protocols are mandatory to be deployed. A prototype design of the temporary dental clinic is the main output from this research. The main objective is to provide service for the community without being afraid of contracting the pandemic as the clinic will be isolated from the regular hospital buildings. To achieve this objective, this research employed three approaches for the methodology. It was started with the desk study to review references on recent technology of temporary building structures. Followed by the online questionnaire using the Google platform distributed to 206 registered dental practitioners in Aceh, in collaboration with the Indonesian Dental Association, Aceh Province, Indonesia. The questionnaire collected the data related to the needs, standards, procedures, and dental service protocols under the Covid-19 pandemic as the main reference for the design process. The last approach was gathering feedback from dentists and international architects who are experts in building science and technology. This was done through a series of pre-design reviews. This research has a high degree of urgency globally, including Saudi Arabia, which is also impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also in line with Saudi Vision 2030 to enhance the standard quality and sustainability of healthcare services. The prototype design proposed in this research does not only contribute to the Covid-19 pandemic in particular but also post-Covid scenarios or other possible global pandemics in the future.
Effects of Uniform Load on Externally Post-tensioning Composite Beams under Multiple Degrees of Shear Connection
Authors: Hassanin A I , Shabaan H F 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Composite beams (steel and concrete) are used widely as the main structural elements in flexure in bridges and buildings. Such structures' design life would be decreased if the loads increased or if environmental deterioration could occur. Such modifications can reduce the strength of these members and therefore need to be considered for replacement or retrofitting.The current study presents an evaluation of the effect of shear connection with its different degrees from partial to full for the composite beams strengthened with post-tensioning tendons. It is known by design that the use of partial shear connection in composite beams requires that the sliding capacitance of the shear connectors shouldn’t be less than the maximum slip so that the composite section can reach the ultimate design load. The degree of shear connection over which the composite section is designed, as well as the span length of the beam, are the most important factors governing the maximum slip limit. This study was performed using numerical modelling by the finite element analysis method to simulate the bending behaviour of composite steel beams under uniform loading cases which were strengthened with three shapes of tendons profiles. The results of two finite element models have been compared with experimental results obtained from previous literature related to the same topic. This comparison was made to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and accuracy of the model used, using ANSYS Workbench Software.
Assessing Seawater Desalination using Reverse Osmosis and Multi-effect Distillation for Kuwait using Life Cycle Assessment: fossil fuels versus solar power
Authors: Aljuwaisseri A , Aleisa E , Alshayji K 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Sustainable water production is one of the top five challenges facing humanity within the upcoming decade, for arid regions the situation is aggravated. Countries worldwide are urged to balance of the SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) to contribute to SDG 13 (climate action). This research evaluates seawater desalination in arid regions using multi-effect distillation (MED) and seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) using fossil fuels versus solar power versus solar collector system (SCS) and and photovoltaic (PV). Four alternatives were investigated MED (NG), MED (SCS), SWRO (NG) and SWRO (PV) using life cycle assessment (LCA) to desalinate one cubic meter of seawater using a second-order boundary (i.e., cradle to gate) in which the operational parameters include: energy, materials, chemicals and additives in accordance with ISO 14040/4. The foreground data is based on field data collection that considers water intake characteristics: salinity and turbidity. The background inventories are based on Ecoinvent database v.3. The life cycle impact assessment is based on midpoint analysis using ReCiPe midpoint (H) v1.10. The results indicates that the primary fuel exergy and the allocation of energy in water electricity co-generation is the defining factor.
Retrofitting Old Silk Factory in Valmadrera, Italy with Insulated Envelope Solutions.
Authors: Rauf K , Paraschiv R 
Published: July 2022

Abstract
Building industry is responsible for almost 50% of the world’s total energy demand. It takes more energy to operate buildings than it takes to run the manufacturing or transportation industry. In the drive for climate change, a lot of work is being done by policy makers for making new projects better aligned with environmental and energy conservation goals. It is not enough to only focus on improving the climate response of new construction. Work also needs to be done on improving the energy performance of existing building projects which will in turn, further reduce the CO2 footprint of the building operations industry. One way to reduce the energy consumption of existing buildings, is to add insulation to façade elements during building retrofitting projects. The purpose of this research is to shed light on probable options and benefits for adding insulation to traditional envelopes. This will enhance the operating capacity of buildings without the need for demolition or re-construction. This project demonstrates the energy efficient retrofitting of an old silk factory in the historic city of Valmadrera, Italy to act as a prototype project testing suitable options for adding insulation to existing structural systems. One of the biggest challenges for this type of upgrade is the porous nature of the existing building material and how it conflicts with the hygroscopy of synthetic insulation materials. The research suggests the use of organic insulating materials for the envelope elements. At the same time it also offers valuable suggestions for future explorations. This research has a high impact value globally, due to the vast treasure of historical architecture buildings which need to be preserved, but also need improvement in terms of their technological performance. Furthermore, it holds strong relevance for the Saudi Vision 2030 because preserving local architectural practices, materials and techniques is a significant part of the national motivation to preserve Saudi cultural identity.