Water is the main source of daily life for everyone and everywhere in the world. Sufficient water distribution depends on the place and design of water tank in certain areas. Water storage tanks are relatively flexible structures and they can tolerate greater settlements than other engineering structures. Deformation of tanks may cause severe damages to tank or even loss of life and injury to people, so monitoring the structural deformation and dynamic response of water tank and its supporting system to the large variety of external loadings has a great importance for maintaining tank safety and economical design of manmade structures. This paper presents an accurate geodetic observations technique to investigate the inclination of an elevated circular water tank and the deformation of its supporting structural system (supporting columns and circular horizontal beams) using reflector-less total station. The studied water tank was designed to deliver water to around 55000 person and has a storage capacity about 750 m3. Due to the studied water tank age, a non-uniform settlement of tank foundation and movement of pumps and electric machines under tank’s body will cause stress and strain for tanks membrane and settlement of sediments. So the studied water tank can tend to experience movement vertically, horizontally or both. Three epochs of observations were done (July 2014, September 2014 and December 2014). The results of the practical measurements, calculations and analysis of the interesting deformation of the studied elevated tanks and its supporting system using least squares theory and computer programs are presented. As a results of monitoring the water storage tank, circular reinforced concrete beams and columns at three monitoring epochs. The body of water storage tank has an inclination to the east direction and the value of inclination is increased with the time.
The article presents the problem of structural friction appearing in a screw joint with frictional effects between its elements. In the article, two mathematical models of screw joint are analysed. In the first model, high stiffness of a nut is assumed. In the second model, the influence of both cooperating elements (the screw and nut) is assumed.
The draw theory is the foundation for decreasing ore loss and dilution indices while extracting deposits from mines. Therefore, research on draw theory is of great significance to optimally guide the draw control and improve the economy efficiency of mines. The laboratory scaled physical draw experiments under inclined wall condition conducted showed that a new way was proposed to investigate the flow zone of granular materials. The flow zone was simply divided into two parts with respect to the demarcation point of the flow axis. Based on the stochastic medium draw theory, theoretical movement formulas were derived to define the gravity flow of fragmented rocks in these two parts. The ore body with 55° dip and 10 m width was taken as an example, the particle flow parameters were fitted, and the corresponding theoretical shape of the draw body was sketched based on the derived equation of draw-body shape. The comparison of experimental and theoretical shapes of the draw body confirmed that they coincided with each other; hence, the reliability of the derived equation of particle motion was validated.
The performance of ten wickless heat pipes without adiabatic sections is investigated experimentally at low heat inputs 120 to 2000 W/m2 for use in solar water heaters. Three heat pipe diameter groups were tested, namely 16, 22, and 28.5 mm. Each group had evaporator lengths of 1150, 1300, and 1550 mm, respectively, with an extra evaporator length of 1800 mm added to the second group. The condenser section length of all heat pipes was 200 mm. Ethanol, methanol, and acetone were utilized as working fluids, at inventory of 25%, 50%, 70%, and 90% by evaporator volume respectively. The 22 mm diameter pipes were tested at inclination angles 30◦, 45◦, and 60◦. Other diameter groups were tested at 45◦ only. Experiments revealed increased surface temperatures and heat transfer coefficients with increased pipe diameter and evaporator length, and that increased working fluid inventory caused pronounced reduction in evaporator surface temperature accompanied by improved heat transfer coefficient to reach maximum values at 50% inventory for the selected fluids. Violent noisy shocks were observed with 70% and 90% inventories with the tested heat pipes and the selected working fluids with heat flux inputs from 320–1900 W/m2. These shocks significantly affected the heat pipes heat transfer capability and operation stability. Experiments revealed a 45◦ and 50% optimum inclination angle of fill charge ratio respectively, and that wickless heat pipes can be satisfactorily used in solar applications. The effect of evaporator length and heat pipe diameter on the performance was included in data correlations.