Plant (vegetable) oils are renewable fluids. They have been developed to replace mineral-based fluids. Due to their distinguished features including eco-friendly properties and possibility of reducing the hydrocarbon and carbon dioxide emission when being used in the industrial processes or internal combustion (IC) engines, they are considered a sustainable source of biodegradable fluids. In this work, non-edible sunflower oil is investigated as a bio hydraulic fluid under various normal loads utilizing the four-ball tribotester. Considering the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM 4172-B) standard, all the experiments are conducted for different loads from 45 kg to 70 kg, the balk temperature was increased until 75°C, rotational speed to 1200 rpm and every experiment was run for one hour. Compared with the mineral-based fluid sample, the outcomes shown that the sunflower oil possesses sufficient properties (anti-wear and anti-friction) especially under lower than 60 kg as a normal load. The results also shown that the sunflower oil is capable to be utilized as a hydraulic fluid.

Vegetable oil has been investigated to displace products which are derived frompetroleum because of its environmentally-safe properties and has become a vital source forbio-lubricants. Vegetable oil availability as one of the renewable sources is one of theusefulness of it. Additionally, the vegetable oils based lubricant has indicated the potentialsfor reducing carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon emission while operating in internalcombustion engines and in industrial processes. In this study, the mustard seeds oil wasinvestigated to study its lubricant characteristics under different loads while comparing itwith commercial lubricant using a pin-on-disk tribometer. The whole experiential workswere corresponding to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM G99).Under lowload, the results exhibit that the mustard seeds oil shows adequate tribological characteristicscompared to other petroleum oil samples. In conclusion, the mustard seeds oil has a betterwear and friction resistance. Therefore, mustard seeds oil can be used for lubrication ofmating components.

The available huge amount of solar radiation in Iraq all over the year can be regarded as a useful energy source. It can be utilized to generate electrical energy using PV panel’s power plants. Therefore, it is important to recognize the behavior of these PV Panels through the year with changing in amount of the solar radiation and weather temperature. The monthly average (daily and hourly) of extraterrestrial, global, diffused, and beam radiation, with PV panel’s temperature and electrical efficiency of different tilt angle is studied in three Iraqi’s cities. The results indicated that the total radiation ranges are greater in Karbala than Samarra and Basra cities; despite of the extraterrestrial radiation in Basra higher value than Samarra and Karbala cities. The higher magnitude in the monthly average solar radiation in any city is not necessarily best location for construction PV power plant, because the electrical performance of PV panels is affected by its temperature. Rising in temperature led to drop in the PV panel’s efficiency.