First Conference on Construction in Desert Areas

The first conference on construction in desert areas will be held in Sabaha on the 22nd to 24th December 2008. It is organized by the department of civil engineering , faculty of engineering, university of Sabha. The theme of the conference is devoted to the problems of construction in the desert environment. More than 35 papers will be presented and discussed during the conference. They cover number of subjects as planning, building, roads and environmental issues. More information about the conference are available at the conference website (Arabic).
A post conference report will be posted here.

PG Study Update

First Stage Report Issued

The first stage of the comprehensive study of determining the asphalt binder for highway pavements in Libya (PG_Libya Study) is almost over and the Report has been issued and submitted to the Road and Bridge Department.

This report contains the results of the data collection, analysis of weather parameters, an overview of Superpave mix design and a sample of the recorded data from the launched monitoring stations .

This study includes the installation of 11 monitoring stations distributed in different regions of Libya.

Each station is equipped to measure and record pavement temperature, air temperature, solar radiation and wind speed.
Two stations (Wadi El-hai in the Northwest and Tamenhent near Sabha in the South) already in service and more stations are under construction. It is expected that all of the stations will start work at the beginning of 2009.

This study is carried out by Omran Engineering Consultants.

Greetings from California

Greeting to all friends and co-workers in Libya and everywhere all over the world. This post is published from Anahiem, Los Angeles, California. I've arrived to Los Angeles on 22.08.2008 for a multipurpose trip. The main reason for coming here is to attaind the IECC5 (Fifth International Conference of the American Socity of Civil Engineers) that took place during 27-29 August 2008, in Irvine. The other reason that make me come earley almost one week before the conference is to have a brief tour in Clifornia. Actually, this was my first visit to California. I'll share with you part of my experience through this post and future post when I get back home and find more time to talk about this fascinating trip. For the time beign I'll post number of pics with a brief captions and will leave details to future posts.

Presenting a paper in the conference. The title was "Asphalt Pavement Temperature Models for Libya". This is reporting of the research work we have done last year, that I've mentioned in an earlear post. The conference was interesting and very successful.

At the Conference's Banquet, with Dr. Ammar from the Nahreen Univ. (Iraq) and Mr. Al Janabi of Nakheel Marinas (Dubai).

View of Los Angeles highway captured through the car window. LA got one of the remarkable freeway networks in the world. At the Southeren entrance to LA city you'll ride over a 5-level highway intersection. Chevorlet Malibu, the rented car I've used in touring California. I've drove from LA to San Francisco, back yo La and then to Irvine. It is the best way to move around in California. The car rent is cheap BUT the fuel is very expensive.

The Cable care is still in operation in the streets of San Francisco. 0-emission mode of urban transport.

The Golden Gate Bridge that connects San Francisco to the mainland. It is Red not gold but it is a great civil engineering project. It is a long story, may be we will come back to it in future.


In front of the City Hall in San Francisco. One of the land marks of this uniqe city. There is a lot to be said about this fascinating city.

Check this blog from time to time for future updates.

Spring 2008

TIME SCHEDULE FOR SPRING 2008

This Spring I'm teaching 3 courses, two undergraduate courses at the University of Al-Fatah and one graduate course at the Academy of Graduate Studies. I'm also supervising 5 MS thises at the two institutions. The time table is as follows:

Sat/Mon : CE314 (11:00 - 12:30) CE517 (14:00 - 15:30)
Wed : TE606 (12:00 - 15:00)

For info about each course please visit the course webpage using the links on the right side bar.