Several aspects hinder the application sustainability in construction industry. The most prominent problems are related to the conservation of natural resources and the generation of construction and demolition wastes. Previous studies indicated that these problems are due to lack of information available to construction projects stakeholders on the proper handling of building materials in their different lifecycle stages. This paper presents Material Passport (MP) tool that provides information on how to handle building materials at the construction stage and how to benefit from them at their

This paper proposes an adaptive transmission modulation (ATM) technique for free-space optical (FSO) links over gamma-gamma turbulence channels.The ATM technique provides efficient utilization of the FSO channel capacity for improving spectral efficiency, by adapting the order of the phase-shift keying modulation scheme, according to the channel conditions and the required bit error rate (BER). To overcome the channel degradation resulting from the turbulence effects as well as the pointing errors (PEs), single-input multiple-output (SIMO) system with maximal ratio combining (MRC) is proposed

The current work is concerned with the study of wave propagation in a half-space of a piezo-thermoelastic material under a bias tangential magnetic field within dual-phase-lag (DPL). This is relevant to the design and performance of piezoelectric devices working under a bias magnetic field, for example, the DC magnetic field piezoelectric sensors widely used in various areas of technology. The characteristic time for the problem under consideration is in the range of picoseconds, which is comparable to the thermal relaxation times in many metals. Exact analytic expressions for the mechanical

We investigate linear, thermoelastic wave propagation in a layered piezoelectric material composed of a slab bonded to a half-space substrate of a dissimilar material, within dual-phase-lag model and under thermomechanical loads. One of the aims of the present work is to formulate a set of boundary conditions that is compatible with the field equations. Normal mode technique is used to obtain a solution to the considered problem. The model allows for a jump in temperature at the interface, and this can be used to evaluate a material constant of the slab. It turns out, particularly, that a

In this paper the activated sludge wastewater treatment process is modeled mathematically and explored. In addition, irrigation was recommended as a valid application for the reuse of wastewater. Other wastewater treatment processes (WWTP) were compared to the one chosen to justify the choice and a detailed expiation of the general wastewater treatment process was provided. Furthermore, PI, and PID controller were developed to further improve the performance of the activated sludge process. The controllers were devolved and tuned using MATLAB, and SIMULINK, and had a positive correlation on

Plasmonic photovoltaics (PVs) are promising structures that improve thin-film photovoltaics performance, where optical absorption is improved via embedding metallic nanoparticles in the PV's active layer to trap the incident optical wave into the photovoltaic cell. The presented work investigates the design of PV with both structures of conical and cylindrical metallic nanoparticles through studying their extinction cross-sections and electric field distributions. Also, the impact of these nanoparticles in silicon PVs on the optical absorption enhancement is investigated. The figure of merit

Synthetic plastics are extensively used in several applications including packaging, containers, bottles, trays, and boxes. However, these plastics are based on synthetic components which are not biodegradable, thus they rigorously effect the environment causing water, air pollution and high health risks. Moreover, Individuals are exposed to chemicals during manufacturing or usage of synthetic plastic that can easily migrate to the surrounding such as styrene from polystyrene, plasticizers from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), antioxidants from polyethylene, and acetaldehyde from polyethylene

A Hydro-Kinematic approach is proposed for the design of compact corrugated plate interceptors (CPIs) for the de-oiling of produced water. For a given set of design targets of a specific flow rate, maximum retention time and minimum captured oil droplet diameter, the Hydro-Kinematic approach proposes a systematic way to determine the CPI unit dimensions and operating conditions with the minimum volume and area per unit input flow rate. The approach takes into account the hydrodynamic constraints in the design of the CPI imposed by the behavior of the dispersed oil droplets in response to the

Condition assessment is an integral component in any infrastructure asset management system. Without condition information, asset managers lack the ability to make appropriate decisions regarding needed maintenance, rehabilitation, and replacement of infrastructure. Existing and emerging technologies for assessing the condition of water and sewer pipes provide a better picture of the state of these buried assets. Unfortunately, many of these technologies are costly and provide results that are not always highly reliable. This paper presents a methodology to assist asset managers in balancing

The use of water main break history as a proxy for condition has become common practice because of the high costs associated with direct assessments. Statistical deterioration models predict future water main breaks on the basis of historical patterns. Many municipalities are beginning to understand the value of utilizing water pipe break histories to manage their noncritical distribution networks via deterioration models. This paper presents a generic IDEF0 process model for developing water main deterioration models. Two common statistical deterioration models for water pipes are compared