Predicting uniaxial compressive strength of rocks using ANN models: Incorporating porosity, compressional wave velocity, and schmidt hammer data.

The unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of intact rocks is crucial for engineering applications, but traditional laboratory testing is often impractical, especially for historic buildings lacking sufficient core samples. Non-destructive tests like the Schmidt hammer rebound number and compressional wave velocity offer solutions, but correlating these with UCS requires complex mathematical models. This paper introduces a novel approach using an artificial neural network (ANN) to simultaneously correlate UCS with three non-destructive test indexes: Schmidt hammer rebound number, compressional wave velocity, and open-effective porosity.

Mechanical, Electrical, and Thermal Properties of Carbon Nanotube Buckypapers/Epoxy Nanocomposites Produced by Oxidized and Epoxidized Nanotubes.

High volume fraction carbon nanotube (CNT) composites (7.5-16% vol.) were fabricated by the impregnation of CNT buckypapers into epoxy resin.

Cupriavidus metallidurans biomineralization ability and its application as a bioconsolidation enhancer for ornamental marble stone.

Bacterially induced calcium carbonate precipitation of a Cupriavidus metallidurans isolate was investigated to develop an environmentally friendly method for restoration and preservation of ornamental stones. Biomineralization performance was carried out in a growth medium via a Design of Experiments (DoE) approach using, as design factors, the temperature, growth medium concentration, and inoculum concentration. The optimum conditions were determined with the aid of consecutive experiments based on response surface methodology (RSM) and were successfully validated thereafter.