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Objective: The study was aimed at determining nursing knowledge and practices regarding prevention of surgical site infection in governmental hospitals in Wasit city. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with descriptive design to determine knowledge and practice of nurses who work in surgical wards regarding prevention of SSI in governmental hospitals in Wasit City. A sample of 180 surgical nurses participated in the study (100% response rate); convenience sampling method was used in this study. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire which is composed of three parts: Demographic characteristics, Nurses’ knowledge questionnaire, and Nurses’ practice questionnaire. Results: The results of current study revealed that (58.3%) of the nurses expressed a poor knowledge regarding SSI as described by low average, which is equivalent to 7.68 (±7.441), and (75.6%) of the nurses expressed an inadequate practice regarding SSI as described by low average, which is equivalent to 36.89 (±13.55). The results show that nurses practices is positively significant correlated with their knowledge (r = 0.216; p = 0.000). Conclusion: Knowledge and practices among nurses working in surgical words in governmental hospitals (both teaching and non-teaching) in Wasit city regarding SSI prevention were found to be low. Being male with high educational level were factors which were significantly associated with knowledge of prevention of SSI. On the other hand, serving for 1–5 years is a factor that was significantly associated with the practice of SSI prevention activities. Therefore, efforts have to be made to update the knowledge of nurses regarding SSI prevention activities. Additionally, hospital administrators ought to motivate highly educated nurses to concentrate on putting their learning into practice.

Coupling beams are considered one of the most important structural elements due to their vital role in resisting lateral loads by improving the overall building stiffness and reducing the impact of the overturning. The resistance of coupled shear walls (CSWs) to earthquakes depends on the coupling beam (CB) for enhancing the ductility of the system and improving the energy absorption capacity. There are two main types of coupling beams; diagonally reinforced coupling beams and conventionally reinforced ones. In the case of diagonal reinforcement, which is being currently recommended by the new design codes, the coupling beams are more efficient in consolidating the walls and providing better performance in resisting earthquakes. On the other hand, the diagonal reinforcing configuration showed some difficulties in terms of construction. There are already existing buildings that have conventionally reinforced coupling beams, which were designed according to the old codes. These coupling beams are in extreme need of strengthening to resist earthquakes. Therefore, some studies have been conducted to find an alternative to the diagonal reinforcing scheme of coupled shear walls. The methods of strengthening differed whether using steel plates or fibre-reinforced polymers sheets. Nowadays Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP) are being widely used to strengthen coupling beams and improve the structural behaviour of coupled shear walls. This paper presents a summary of some studies available in the literature concerning the strengthening of the coupling beams and coupled shear walls using FRP. Strengthening method, strengthening configurations, failure modes, and test setups are summarized.

A substantial amount of work was carried out on the use of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) in reinforced concrete structural elements, which demonstrated considerable inelasticity or deformity through monotonic and cyclic loads. Even so, the action of FRP bars in reinforced concrete columns and frame structures has not yet been studied during reversed cyclic loading. In this research, reversed cyclic loading was applied on three beam-column joint models using the finite element method with ANSYS software. The first model was for a joint designed with steel rebar for both the longitudinal and transversal reinforcement. Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) rebar was used in the second joint model for the longitudinal reinforcement with steel transversal reinforcement. The third joint model was designed with hybrid steel/GFRP reinforcement for the longitudinal reinforcement and steel transversal reinforcement. The performance of the three models under reversed cyclic loading, such as load vs. story drift and energy dissipation capacity, were compared. The GFRP-reinforced model displayed a predominantly elastic behavior up to failure. Although its energy dissipation was lower, its performance in terms of total story drift demand was satisfactory

The seismic evaluation of existing buildings is a more troublesome assignment than the seismic design of new buildings. The need for seismic evaluation for buildings becomes necessary to know the level of structural damage and how to cure it due to earthquakes. The seismic evaluation shows how the structure’s behavior under seismic loads and determines the ultimate capacity for the structure, there are several methods used in seismic assessment in the analysis which may be static or dynamic. In this study, an educational building located in Egypt has been evaluated for the seismic load to decide if there is a need for retrofitting or not. The seismostruct program is used for modeling and analyzing three dimensional reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with different stories; Ground +4 stories (G+4), Ground +7 stories (G+7), Ground +10 stories (G+10), and Ground +13 stories (G+13) RC building located in different seismic zones; II, III, IV, and zone V. A nonlinear static pushover analysis (POA) using the displacement coefficient method was used to evaluate the seismic performance of the existing building. The analysis results are disseminated in terms of inter-story drift ratio, capacity curves with performance point, and performance criteria checks for each model.

The use of bonded externally polymer reinforced fiber (FRP) Laminates has been introduced as an effective approach in rehabilitating (RC) structures due to their high strength, corrosion resistance, reduced weight, and ease of use. This paper discusses the experimental results of the flexural reinforcement of RC beams by CFRP sheets bonded by epoxy adhesive to the tensile surface of the beams. Using a four-point bending load system over an effective clear length of 1800 mm, a total of ten beams with an overall dimension of 150 * 200 * 2000 with different degrees of strengthening schemes were constructed and tested. A numerical study using ANSYS finite element program was conducted by modeling RC beams. The number of layers, strengthening scheme (side and U-shape bonding) and reinforcement ratio are the major parameters of the experimental study. the research indicate that the flexural strength of the beams was substantially improved as the layers of laminate increased between 31.80 and 71.50 % and using U shape in ends delaying or preventing debonding failure. The result obtained using ANSYS model showed acceptable agreement with the experimental results, with deviations varying no more than 10 % for all specimens.

One of the advanced structural systems that have been applied in tall buildings to improve the building strength during quake loads is the outrigger system. Most of the previous researches interested to study the behavior of steel outrigger truss system, although the hard connection between the concrete and steel members may give us the inaccurate output. For that, This research aims to find the best structural concrete outrigger system by performing a comparison between two structural outrigger systems, the wall beam outrigger system, and the vierendeel outrigger system which makes the building facing strong actual earthquakes. All the models were analyzed in the advanced Midas-Gen software program and the building response was studied under El-Centro time history earthquake load. And also, finding the best outrigger position through the building height when the outrigger is applied in one and two stories. This comparison is built on different parameters as storey drift, storey drift ratio, and the base storey overturning moment. The results showed that a one-storey wall beam structural system is better than two stories vierendeel structural system when these systems are applied as an outrigger system. The best position for one storey outrigger is about 0.45 of the total building height and for the two stories outrigger, the 0.20 and 0.45 of the total building height are the best positions. Overall, the concrete outrigger systems are an effective structural system to make the tall buildings facing the earthquake loads.

In this research, the finite element method is used to develop a numerical model to analyse the effect of the external strengthening of reinforced concrete beams by using carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) sheets. A finite element model has been developed to investigate the behavior of RC beams strengthened with CFRP sheets by testing nineteen externally simple R.C. beams, tested under a four-point load setup until failure. Various CFRP systems were used to strengthen the specimens. The numerical results using the (ANSYS workbench v.19.1) were calibrated and validated with the experimental results. The research results indicate a significant improvement in the structural behavior of the specimens strengthened using CFRP sheet systems. Then the validated model investigated the effect of the width of CFRP sheets, no of layers, and CFRP size on the behavior of strengthened R.C. beams. Results of this numerical investigation show the effectiveness of increase CFRP width to improve the flexural capacity of R.C. beams. An increase in the flexural capacity up to 100 % compared to the control beam.

This research presents the effect of drop area in the center of span with different thicknesses of drop using finite element method(FEM) .The numerical work here focus on the effect of drop area on deflection and shear stress on flat slap with drop area and compare it with flat slab without drop area. Nonlinear finite element on the slab specimens with drop area was realized using ANSYS software. the study models is flat slab with drop 0.06m and 0.12m with fixed and varying bottom with area of drop (2*2)m ,from this research it can be conclude that the best case of drop in deflection ,stress y and cracks is flat slab with drop 0.12m with varying bottom with area of drop (2*2)m.

High-strength concrete incorporating macro-fiber combines high compressive strength of the matrix, strain-hardening, and multiple crack characteristics. Also, calcite sediment remediation bacterial techniques can enhance the mechanical properties, reduce concrete deterioration, and prevent corrosion of steel reinforcement in both the short-term and long-term. In this paper, The Bacillus subtilis bacteria at an optimum dosage of 105 cells/ml of mixing water was incorporated into M60 and M80 concrete strengthened with 0.5% macro synthetic-fiber content. The performance of 32 simply supported reinforced concrete beams with rectangular-section were evaluated numerically using ANSYS. In this study, the properties of matrix components are considered for different geometric sizes as slender and short beams with different longitudinal reinforcement ratios. The results showed that the bacterial participation in fibrous concrete beams had more significant enhancement in the initial cracking load, ultimate load, moment capacity ratio, ductility ratio, and flexural toughness compared to associated conventional concrete.

The developed Strut-and-Tie Model (STM) has no unique shape for each load caseof a given structural problem as long as the selected idealized internal load-resistingtruss is in equilibrium with boundary forces, and also stresses in its components"struts, ties, and nodes" are within acceptable limits. However, the optimal shapesare the well-designed with best ordinal weight number of conditional factors as therebar amount, the load factor, and the structural concrete ductility. The currentstudy investigates numerically based on FE method stress flow contours and microtruss techniques many alternatives with different shapes of struts and ties thattransfer the flow of forces from top of the deep beam with opening to both right andleft supports. Then, these alternatives with different concrete characteristics areanalyzed by strut-and-tie computational tools using different code provisions forverifying its results accuracy with the numerical nonlinear finite element analysisresults for studying the structure performance under applied service loads and overloading till failure. The chosen alternative produce load factor to reach capacitygreater than 1, therefore the strut-and-tie method always give demand collapse loadlower than the true capacity collapse load. This implies that the solution obtainedfrom STM usually lies on the safe side with conservative sense for concretestructures subjected to service loads. That’s why the STM is emerging as anincreasingly popular code-worthy methodology for the design and detailing ofconcrete structures D-Regions.

Fibers and bacterial additives in concrete have achieved significant success as a construction material. This paper presents the field of concrete self-repairing by introducing both Bacillus subtilis bacteria and polyethylene fiber as a dual-components. The main research goal is to reveal the principles of concrete self-repairing. At first, the research investigates the fiber-reinforced-concrete behavior, the concrete self-repairing process with the Bacillus subtilis bacteria for forming bacterial-concrete. And then, the study highlights the damage-repairing numerical simulation of fiber-reinforced-bacterial-concrete. The research shows the bacterial-concrete benefits to durability and mechanical properties besides to the polyethylene fiber assistance to enhance post-cracking tensile resistance and the pre-peak elastic modulus of concrete. The novelty of the fiber-reinforced-bacterial-concrete is the matrix combined improvement of both basic material properties and the post-cracking deflection capacity.

This paper presents a nonlinear finite element model to investigate the behavior of hybrid Fiber Reinforced Polymers and steel reinforcement. Different types of Fiber Reinforced Polymers; CFRP and GFRP; were used along with steel rebars in the studied concrete beams. The study was conducted using the nonlinear finite element program “ANSYS”. Nonlinear material models for the components of the concrete beam were used in the three dimensional finite element models. The outcomes got from finite element analysis were confirmed against experimental results. A broad parametric study was conducted to explore the effect of replacing steel reinforcement by different types of FRP bars. The study showed that the contribution of steel rebars to FRP rebars in concrete beams improved beam ductility and eliminated the unfavorable brittle failure of the concrete beam. In addition, it is better to use steel rebars as top reinforcement in concrete beams with hybrid reinforcement. In hybrid GFRP/steel reinforced concrete beams, a significant reduction in stiffness and a noticeable increase in the beams' deflection after the initiation of first crack and yielding of steel reinforcement were observed. On the other hand, in hybrid CFRP/steel reinforced concrete beams showed a better performance during cracking initiation and propagation. Keywords: Concrete beam, Hybrid, Steel reinforcement, FRP reinforcement, Flexure, Finite element analysis