Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The City of Salt As the sixth Jordanian site in the list of World Heritage sites, there is many efforts have been devoted to include the city of Salt in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to be nominated in the list of World Heritage Sites as it is an ancient city that has many historical, urban and archaeological qualifications in the distant and recent past, also with considering the natural qualifications of the city. The inclusion of the city of Salt in the list of World Heritage sites raises many questions about the possibility of achieving this achievement, and the implications of the local community based on this inclusion, whether the positive or negative effects in aspects of Economic, social, behavioral, political. Also considering the community and tourists vision of the state of the world heritage site in the city and its support to this status, and highlighting the role played by Salt in the development of tourism in the case if it takes a place in the World Heritage List, this paper will be examined through several previous studies in this framework, and will develop expected results for these impacts on the local community accordingly.

Greenhouse assessment of the effect of oil on Chromolaena odorata ability to remove PCB from soil treated with transformer oil co-contaminated with Aroclor 1260 was done.

Method: Plants were transplanted into one kilogram of soil contained in 1L pots differently containing 100, 200, and 500 ml of transformer oil (T/O), co-contaminated with 100 ppm of Aroclor. Treatments were done in two microcosms; direct contamination and soil cultured method. Measured plant growth parameters showed that C. odorata growth was affected by the different concentrations of oil. Inhibition of plant growth by oil increased with concentrations.

Results: At the end of six weeks, plant growth was affected in T/O amended soil. Plants size was increased by 1.4, 0.46 and -1.0% in direct treatment and 17.01, 6.09 and 1.08% in soil culture at the 100, 200 and 500 ppm respectively. Untreated control showed a 43.07% increase. Slight PCB recovery was observed in root tissues of C. odorata but soil PCB was reduced by 66.6%, 53.2%, 41.5% and 77.3%, 74.7%, 58.8% at both treatments in their respective concentrations of oil. However, unplanted control was reduced by 21.4% and 16.7% in the two treatments at 100 ppm of oil.

Conclusion: This study has shown that with improved agronomic practices, there is a possibility of phytoremediation of soil PCB from PCB contained transformer oil contaminated soil using Chromolaena odorata, hence it should be optimized in the field.

In the last two decades, many developed countries such as America and developing countries such as Jordan have undergone extensive privatization of public spaces, which has been expressed by intensive and modern construction of resident societies where this process can be observed in many cities that apply the principles of policies and neoliberal and modern theories in engineering Architecture, which in turn affected the support and expansion of capital for the higher social classes and the weakening of the welfare of the poor social classes as part of the globalization processes. My research method will focus extensively on the relationship of politics and beauty in architecture through a comparative study based on an analysis of the influence of architectural characteristics of neoliberal and modern theories before and after World War I and II on the formation of buildings that in turn affect the city, society, or region. The architect criticizes the role of globalization, politics, and economics as an important factor in architecture development processes.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is widely seen as a catalyst for innovation and productivity in the construction industry. While BIM is increasingly being adopted in developed countries, implementations in the developing country context are rare. Research has established how construction firms struggle from several limitations having to do with the socio-economic and technological environment found in developing countries. Case studies shows that BIM does enhance the traditional scheduling and cost estimating methods with a more reliable and automated technology. Due to numerous steps of construction industry and its complicated and extensive structure, errors and reworks often might happen in this section. As such, BIM (Building Information Modeling) is regarded as a beneficial tool in minimizing the waste and improving the efficiency of building construction. This project is an application of Building Information Modeling which is an upcoming topic in the field of construction planning and management. We selected an institutional building to show the application of Building Information Modeling using software like Revit (2018) and Navisworks Manage (2018). We wanted to show the application of BIM which would make the construction of a humungous project like an educational institutional building to be more precise and well managed within the limited time frame. We collected data such as the floor plans and elevations of the new Gandhi Block (School of Architecture) in VIT, Vellore campus and created a 3-Dimensional model of the building using the Revit (2018) software. By creating a 3-D model we were able to give a real life representation of the building. We created the 3-D model according to the dimensions and specifications in the floor plan and elevation provided to us. We then transferred the model to the Navisworks Manage software for simulation the time constraint. As majority of the building construction was completed at the time of the project, we collected the actual start and finish dates of construction of different components and parts of the building. We created a CSV excel file with the time schedule of the entire construction process including start and finish dates of each process. The file was then added to Navisworks manage. We created sets for each building components like flooring, walls, windows, doors and ceiling for each floor. We then linked the sets to the activity and their respective dates to create the time constraint simulation. Creating this sort of a time constraint simulation will help us get a virtual idea or image of the completion of the entire project part by part and helps managing the construction more efficiently and precisely.

The quality of surface water from rivers, streams and ponds around Ihetutu mining areas in Ishiagu, was evaluated using Water Quality Index (WQI) model, to assess their suitability for drinking purposes at different seasons. Surface water samples were collected in rainy, late rainy, dry and late dry seasons, from 10 cm below water surface of the streams, ponds, and mine pits into 1.0 L polyethylene bottles, rinsed thoroughly with deionized water. The samples were preserved at 4°C in an ice box and then transported to the laboratory for analysis. Samples were digested and analyzed, using standard methods for nine physico-chemical parameters including pH, Cl-, SO₄²-, NO₃ -, DO, BOD₅, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, K+. NESREA regulatory values for surface water were used as standard values while mean values of the physico-chemical parameters were used as observed values to determine the WQI for each sampling station. Ranges of the physico-chemical parameters were: pH = 6.52–7.49; Cl- = 13.70–795.25 mg/L; SO₄²- = 19.28-229.25 mg/L; NO₃ - = 0.33–3.72 mg/L; DO = 5.72–8.76 mg/L; BOD₅ = 12.19–18.20 mg/L; Ca²⁺ = 6.56–130.44 mg/L; Mg²⁺ = 2.06–20.89 mg/L; and K+ = 4.51-32.93 mg/L. Average and seasonal WQI values were found to be >100 which indicated that the surface water resources in the area were unsuitable for drinking, though Iyiogwe stream had a WQI value of 98 in the late dry season, indicating rather a very poor quality of its surface water. The results revealed that untreated mine wastewater, dumps, and other contaminants discharged from point and non-point sources into the rivers, streams, and ponds/pits were responsible for the extremely poor quality of the surface water, and must therefore be treated properly before use to avoid water related ailments. The study created a database for current status of surface water on Ihetutu hills, which can be used for the management of ponds/pits, stream and river water in the area, and the study of the impact of mining activities on the surface water qualities.

In the last few decades, premature deterioration of reinforced concrete (RC) structures has become a serious problem because of severe environmental actions, overloading, design faults, and materials deficiencies. Therefore, repair and strengthening of RC elements in existing structures are very important to extend their service life. There are numerous methods for retrofitting and strengthening of RC structural components such as; steel plate bonding, external pre-stressing, section enlargement, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) wrapping, and so on. Although these modifications can successfully improve the load-bearing capacity of the beams, they are still prone to corrosion damage resulting in failure of the strengthened elements. Therefore, many researchers used cementitious materials due to its low-cost, corrosion resistance, and resulted in the improvement of the tensile and fatigue behaviors. Different types of cementitious materials such as; fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC), high performance concrete (HPC), high strength concrete (HSC), ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC), steel fiber-reinforced high strength lightweight self-compacting concrete (SHLSCC), fabrics reinforced cementitious material (FRCM) and so on have been used to strengthen structural elements. This paper summarized previously published research papers concerning the structural behaviors of RC beams strengthened by different cementitious materials. Shear behaviors, flexural characteristics, torsional properties, deflection, cracking propagation, and twisting angle of the strengthened beams are explained in the present paper. Finally, proper methods are proposed for strengthening RC beams under various loading conditions.

Now-a-days, sustainability is one of the most important goals of also the construction sector, as it is in most of the other sectors. However, sustainability in the construction sector is dealt mostly with its environmental and economic dimensions and its social dimension remains in the background. This situation causes the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), which is perhaps the most important issue within the scope of social sustainability, to be addressed on its own, and its relationship with sustainability to be not introduced clearly. In this study, firstly, the relationship between social sustainability and OHS in the construction sector was discussed. Based on the fact that in construction projects the sustainability goal should be revealed forward to a great extent at the design stage, how to contribute to OHS by budgeting OHS activities together with project activities was explained. The study is expected to help construction sector stakeholders to understand the relationship between social sustainability and OHS, and to provide a clear picture of the role of budgeting in this respect.