There has been a growing concern of water scarcity in recent years as global water shortages are increasing. The concrete industry consumes about 2 billion tons of potable water annually. For this reason, seawater has drawn attention as a potential substitute for mixing and curing water for concrete if certain challenges can be addressed. One of the main problems associated with the use of seawater in concrete is the risk of corrosion of internal steel reinforcement. Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars have been shown to be a viable reinforcement alternative in aggressive environments due to their corrosion-resistant properties. Glass FRP (GFRP) bars, due to their acceptable mechanical properties and reasonable price, are currently the most widely used in industry. GFRP bars are manufactured with a variety of surface configurations having different bond performance in concrete, which influences structural behaviour in concrete flexural elements. Therefore, the viability of GFRP bars with sand coated and spiral deformations in seawater concrete is an important topic for research. In this study the bond behaviour is investigated using two different test methods: 1) pullout specimens, and 2) beam anchorage specimens. The results suggest that there is no significant difference between the short-term bond strength of GFRP bars in seawater concrete compared to normal concrete. Additional research is recommended to explore possible long-term issues.

Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is an imaging technique used in conjunction with radiation therapy. CBCT is used to verify the position of tumours just prior to radiation treatment session. The accuracy of the radiation treatment of thoracic and upper abdominal tumours is heavily affected by respiratory movement. Blurring artefacts, due to the movement during a CBCT scanning, cause misregistration between the CBCT image and the planning image. There has been growing interest in the use of motion-compensated CBCT for correcting the breathing-induced artefacts. A wide range of iterative reconstruction methods have been developed for CBCT imaging. The direct motion compensation technique has been applied to algebraic reconstruction technique (ART), simultaneous ART (SART), ordered-subset SART (OS-SART) and conjugate gradient least squares (CGLS). In this thesis a dual modality imaging of electrical impedance tomography (EIT) and CBCT is proposed for the first time. This novel dual modality imaging uses the advantages of high temporal resolution of EIT imaging and high spatial resolution of the CBCT method. The main objective of this study is to combine CBCT with EIT imaging system for motion-compensated CBCT using experimental and computational phantoms. The EIT images were used for extracting motion for a motion-compensated CBCT imaging system. A simple motion extraction technique is used for extracting motion data from the low spatial resolution EIT images. This motion data is suitable for input into the direct motion-compensated CBCT. The performance of iterative algorithms for motion compensation was also studied. The dual modality CBCT-EIT is verified using experimental EIT system and computational CBCT phantom data.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF TARUN KUMAR DONGA, for the Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering, Presented on August 29th 2017, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE INCREASE ON BUCKLING OF AXIALLY RESTRAINED BEAM-COLUMNS WITH DOUBLE CURVATURE MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Aslam Kassimali, Ph.D. The main objective of this research was to study the buckling and post-buckling response of axially restrained beam-columns under thermal loading. Also the effects of slenderness ratios on pre-buckling and post-buckling behavior which is neglected in (AISC 2010 specification) for Structural Steel Buildings, was examined. The results of this study indicate that: a) The deflection and end moment amplification factors are significantly smaller for the restrained beam-columns under temperature increase than the corresponding unrestrained beam-columns under mechanical axial loads. - b) The deflection amplification and moment amplification factors tend to increase with increasing ratio of end moments. c) Thermal amplification factors, even in the pre buckling range, were found to be smaller than the AISC (2010) specification values, the difference was more significant for longer beam columns as compared to shorter ones.

The suppression of turbulent transport is a key requirement for enabling nuclear fusion to become a viable energy source. One possible route to achieving this suppression is through toroidal flow shear. We investigate the effect that flow shear has on the structure of turbulence by analysing data from both measurements of the fluctuating intensity field using the Beam-Emission-Spectroscopy (BES) diagnostic on the spherical tokamak MAST, as well as from numerical simulations of the fluctuating density field in MAST. We develop a procedure to map from the correlation parameters of the intensity field to the correlation parameters of the density field. This procedure is illustrated using the MAST BES system and the validity of the underlying assumptions is tested on fluctuating density fields generated by direct numerical simulations using the gyrokinetic code GS2. By using this procedure, we demonstrate how, in experiment, the flow shear associated with the differential toroidal rotation of tokamak plasmas breaks an underlying symmetry of the turbulent fluctuations imposed by the up-down symmetry of the magnetic equilibrium. Indeed, in both experimental BES measurements and gyrokinetic simulations, this symmetry breaking in ion-scale turbulence in MAST is shown to manifest itself as a tilt of the spatial correlation function and a finite skew in the distribution of the fluctuating intensity (density) field. The tilt is a statistical expression of the "shearing" of the turbulent structures by the mean flow. The skewness of the distribution is related to the emergence of long-lived density structures in sheared, near-marginal plasma turbulence. The extent to which these effects are pronounced is argued (with the aid of the simulations) to depend on the distance from the non- linear stability threshold. Away from the threshold, the symmetry is effectively restored.

Plasma-based accelerators offer the potential to achieve accelerating gradients orders of magnitude higher than are typical in conventional accelerators. A Plasma Accelerator Research Station has been proposed using the CLARA accelerator at Daresbury Laboratory. In this thesis, theory and the results of particle-in-cell simulations are presented investigating experiments that could be conducted using CLARA as well as the preceding VELA and CLARA Front End. Plasma wakefield acceleration was found to be viable with both CLARA and CLARA Front End, with accelerating gradients of GV/m and 100 MV/m scale respectively. Drive-witness and tailored bunch structures based on the CLARA bunch were also investigated. Plasma focus- ing of the VELA and CLARA Front End bunches was studied in simulations, showing that substantial focusing gradient could be achieved using a passive plasma lens. A plasma beam dump scheme using varying plasma density is also presented. This scheme allows the performance of a passive plasma beam dump to be maintained as the bunch is decelerated and has some advantages over a previously proposed method.

A series of experiments into the behavior of underexpanded jet flows has been conducted at NASA Langley Research Center. This work was conducted in support of the Return to Flight effort following the loss of the Columbia. The tests involved simulating flow through a hypothetical breach in the leading edge of the Space Shuttle Orbiter along its reentry trajectory, with the goal of generating a data set with which other researchers can test and validate computational modeling tools. Two nozzles supplied with high-pressure gas were used to generate axisymmetric underexpanded jets exhausting into a low-pressure chamber. These nozzles had exit Mach numbers of 1 and 2.6. Reynolds numbers based on nozzle exit conditions ranged from about 200 to 35,000, and nozzle exit-to-ambient jet pressure ratios ranged from about 1 to 37. Both free and impinging jets were studied, with impingement distances ranging from 10 to 40 nozzle diameters, and impingement angles of 45??, 60??, and 90??. For the majority of cases, the jet fluid was a mixture of 99.5% nitrogen seeded with 0.5% nitric oxide (NO).;Planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) of NO was used to non-intrusively visualize the flow with a temporal resolution on the order of lets. PLIF images were used to identify and measure the location and size of flow structures. PLIF images were further used to identify unsteady jet behavior in order to quantify the conditions governing the transition to turbulent flow. This dissertation will explain the motivation behind the work, provide details of the laser system and test hardware components, discuss the theoretical aspects of laser-induced fluorescence, give an overview of the spectroscopy of nitric oxide, and summarize the governing fluid mechanical concepts. It will present measurements of the size and location of flow structures, describe the basic mechanisms and origins of unsteady behavior in these flows, and discuss the dependence of such behavior on particular flow structures. Finally, correlations describing the relationship between flow conditions and the degree of flow unsteadiness at a given location along the jet axis will be presented.

This dissertation deals with the neutrino fluxes that come from charm decays in hadronic collisions in beam dump and collider experiments. The specific focus is on the beam dump experiment SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) and the collider experiment LHC (Large Hadron Collider). Based on the HVQMNRPHO computer program, the next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD (pQCD) calculation is performed for charm quark. Two nonperturbative effects, the initial transverse momentum and fragmentation are modeled by a Gaussian function and the Peterson fragmentation function, respectively. The parameters in these two models are determined by comparisons with the experimental data. The distributions of charm hadrons $D_s^-$, $D^-$, $D^0$ and $\Lambda_c^-$ are thus obtained. By considering the full 3-Dimensional kinematics of the charm hadron decays in the hadron rest frame and then Lorentz transforming to the lab frame, the tau neutrino and muon neutrino fluxes are obtained. The number of neutrino charged current (CC) events at the neutrino detector are evaluated for SHiP and the LHC. The NLO pQCD evaluation predicts about 300 tau neutrino and antineutrino events for SHiP which is much higher than the number of tau neutrino events observed already at OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) and DONuT (Direct observation of the nu tau), and thus provides the potential to study the tau neutrino interactions with high statistics. An estimate of the possible intrinsic charm production has been performed for SHiP which may make its presence in the hadron and neutrino specta. Hundreds of tau neutrino and antineutrino events per year per kilogram of lead are achievable for a very far-forward neutrino detector at the LHC.

Thesis --(MSc. (Medical Physics)), 2009. / Introduction The primary role of breast cancer treatment with radiation is to deliver a sufficient radiation dose to the cancer cells without unduly causing biological damage to the healthy tissues. For over 50 years, electron beam therapy has been an important modality for providing an accurate dose of radiation to superficial cancers and disease and for limiting the dose to underlying normal tissues and structures in particular to boost the dose to the tumour bed and surgical scars after mastectomy. The Monte Carlo code MCNP5 was used to determine the effect of silicone gel breast prosthesis on the electron beam dose distribution. Materials and Method Percentage depth dose curves (PDD) for 6, 9, 12, and 15 MeV electron energies along the electron central axis depth dose distributions in a water phantom and with silicone prosthesis immersed in a water phantom were simulated using MCNP5. In order to establish the accuracy of the MCNP5 code, the depth dose curves obtained using MCNP5 were compared against the measured depth dose curves obtained from the Varian 2100C linear accelerator. The simulated depth dose curves with silicone prosthesis immersed in water were compared to the measured depth dose curves with the vi silicone prosthesis in water. The dose at the interface of the prosthesis with water was measured using thermoluminiscent dosimeters. Results The simulated and measured depth dose curve and the investigated dosimetric parameters are within 2%. Simulations in the presence of silicone showed a decrease in dose as the at the interface as the beam passes from the prosthesis to water for most energies however, for 15 MeV beam there is an increase in dose at the interface between the prosthesis and water and this was verified by physical measurements. Conclusion There were good correlations between the measured and MCNP simulated depth dose curve. Differences were in order of 2%. Small deviations occurred due to the fact that the simulations assumed a monoenergetic beam that exits the accelerator head, while in the measured results the beam exiting from the accelerator head includes scatted radiation from the collimators and the applicator. The presence of the prosthesis does not perturb the electron beam central axis depth dose curve however, the 15 MeV beam enhanced the dose in front of the interface between the prosthesis and water. Despite the limitations mentioned above MCNP5 results agree reasonably with the measured results. Hence, MCNP5 can be very useful in simulating electron percentage depth dose data.

Introduction: Increasing the imaging demand in the dental field has lead to a dramatic increase in the number of CBCT machines in the U.S. market with a variety of new models and features, as well as different radiation exposures. These differences in exposure among the different CBCT machines and the potential for radiation accumulation over a life time are major concerns for aiming for a reduction in patients’ radiation exposure. Most of the studies have aimed to measure the radiation dose in different CBCT units with different field of views. Up to date, few studies have aimed to measure the radiation dose in different CBCT devices with similar fields of view. The aim of the study was to compare the dosimetry levels with relatively small FOV in different scan protocols in two CBCT units. Materials and methods: A 16-cm diameter PMMA phantom with 10-cm pencil ionization chamber were used to measure the radiation exposure from two CBCT devices: i-CAT FLX and CS9000. A smallest FOV in both CBCT (8 x 8 cm in the i-CAT FLX and 5 x 3.7 cm in the CS9000) was selected at different scan protocols. The scan settings included in the i-CAT FLX HD (120 kVp; 5 mA; 7.4 sec; 0.125, 0.250, 0.200 mm voxel sizes; 360° rotation) Quick HD (120 kVp; 5 mA; 4.1 sec; 0.200, 0.250 mm voxel sizes; 180° rotation), Quick+ (90 kVp; 3 mA; 2 sec; 0.300, 0.400 mm voxel sizes; 180° rotation) , Quick (120 kVp; 5 mA; 2 sec; 0.300, 0.400 mm voxel sizes; 180° rotation), and standard scans (120 kVp; 5 mA; 3.7 sec; 0.300, 0.400 mm voxel sizes; 360° rotation). In the CS9000 scan settings included voxel sizes (CS9000: 0.076 mm, 0.100 mm, and 0.200 mm), 80 kVp, 10 mA, 10.8 sec, and 360° rotation. The phantom was exposed three times at the same position to calculate the average measurement of dose by the ionization chamber. All the radiation exposure doses were read by one examiner. Results: The radiation exposure of the phantom slots in different resolutions and scan protocols in the both CBCT units ranged from 4.31 to 60.73 mR. There were statistically significant differences in radiation value between i-CAT FLX and CS9000 due to voxel size (P < 0.001). Each voxel size was significantly different from the other in both scanners, except between CS9000 0.076 and HD 0.125; CS9000 0.200 and HD 0.125; and CS9000 0.100 and HD 0.200. Also, there were no statistically significant differences between the voxel size within the same scan protocols in the i-CAT FLX, especially the Quick HD, Quick+, Quick, and Standard scans. Conclusion: The selection of x-ray parameters (mainly scan time), voxel size, and rotation angle have a significant radiation expsoure reduction in both the i-CAT FLX and CS9000 units and hence should be appropriately selected to minimize the radiation dose.

From one treatment to the next, considerable effort is made to accurately position radiotherapy patients according to their treatment plans. However, some variation is unavoidable. The target volume and the organs at risk may also move within the patient and/or change shape during the treatment. Thus, it is important to be able to verify the success of the treatment by determining the position of patient and the dose deposited in the patient at each fraction. One possibility to achieve this, particularly when equipment, time and budgets are limited, would be to collect limited information while the patient is on the treatment couch. This research was aimed to develop a method for optimum beam position determination, for each patient-specific case. The optimized beam positions would balance the both treatment planning and image reconstruction, so that the patient???s image can be obtained during the treatment delivery using the information collected from the same angles as used for treatment. This will allow verification of the dose deposited in the patient for every fraction. Using a limited number of angles for image reconstruction, the dose to the patient can be minimized. This work has two major parts, beam position optimization for image reconstruction and beam position optimization for treatment planning. These two optimizations are then combined to obtain the optimum beam position for both image reconstruction and treatment planning. An objective function, projection correlation, was developed to investigate the image reconstruction method using limited information. Another objective function, the average optimization quality factor, was also introduced to optimize beam positions for treatment planning. Two optimization methods, the gradient descent method and the simulated annealing based on these objective functions were used to determine the beam angles. The results show that the projection correlation presents several advantages. It can be applied without any iterations, and it produces a fast algorithm. The present research will allow selection of the optimum beam positions without excessive computational cost for treatment planning and imaging. By combining the projection correlation and the average optimization quality factor together with more advanced image reconstruction software this could potentially be used in a clinical environment.