Sustainable vegetative management plays a significant role in improving soil quality in degraded agricultural landscapes by enhancing soil microbial biomass. This study investigated the effects of grass buffers (GBs), biomass crops (BCs), grass waterways (GWWs), and agroforestry buffers (ABs) on soil microbial biomass and soil organic C (SOC) compared with continuous corn (
Stone columns are widely used globally due to theirversatility and relative wide applicability to treat different soil and foundation situations but much of the research undertaken to date has focused on their use in soft soils. In countries like Iraq the use of stone columns is still limited from a practical point of view, chiefly as many other soil conditions are commonly encountered. These include collapsible soils: soils that are prone to relatively rapid volume compressions (through collapse of metastable fabrics) that occur due to the action of load and/or increases in water content. Recent work has opened up the possibility to use stone columns in these soils by the use of encasement, thereby overcoming the impact of loss of lateral
... Show MoreThis research focuses on studying the effects of soil movement on the behavior of an existing pile driven in sandy soil. A physical model has been manufactured to investigate the effect of construction of an embankment adjacent to free head single pile driven in sand of dry unit weight of 13.5 kN/m3. The model pile of diameter (D) of 10 mm are tested under two conditions of loading: loaded axially and without load. The model piles are instrumented with strain gauges along the embedded length to measure strains resulting from the soil movement. The embankment loads are applied at distances of 2.5, 5, and 10D from the edge of the pile. The results obtained from the
Gypseous soils are common in several regions in the world including Iraq, where more than 28.6% of its surface is covered with this type of soil. This soil, with high gypsum content, causes different problems for construction and strategic projects. As a result of water flow through the soil mass, the permeability and chemical arrangement of these soils varies with time due to the solubility and leaching of gypsum. In this study, the soil of 36% gypsum content, was taken from one location about 100 km southwest of Baghdad, where the samples were taken from depths (0.5 - 1) m below the natural ground and mixed with (3%, 6%, 9%) of Copolymer and Novolac polymer to improve the engineering properties that include: collapsibility, perm
... Show MoreIn this research, the geotechnical properties of the soil profile in Hilla city within Babylon Governorate in the middle parts of Iraq are described. The geotechnical data at the specific sites were collected from some geotechnical investigation reports performed at some selected locations. This article is devoted to studying the distribution of soil properties (the physical and mechanical) in the horizontal and vertical directions. Moreover, a correlation between different physical and mechanical properties is performed. The correlation is executed using statistical analysis by Microsoft Excel Software (2016). From the regression results, it was found that the nature of the soil is c
The best design of subsurface trickle irrigation systems requires knowledge of water and salt distribution patterns around the emitters that match the root extraction and minimize water losses. The transient distribution of water and salt in a two-dimensional homogeneous Iraqi soil domain under subsurface trickle irrigation with different settings of an emitter is investigated numerically using 2D-HYDRUS software. Three types of Iraqi soil were selected. The effect of altering different values of water application rate and initial soil water content was investigated in the developed model. The coefficient of correlation (R2) and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) was used to validate the predicted numerical res
... Show MoreThe dynamic response of foundation rest on collapsible soil in dry and soaked states is studied through wide experimental programmed. Gypseous soil from Tikrit governorate area was obtained and subjected to various physical and chemical analysis to determine its properties. Steel rectangular footing (400x200x20) mm is manufactured. The machine is fitted to the footing, then the model machine foundation is placed centrally over the prepared soil layer in steel container (1200x 1000x1000)mm with proper care to maintain the center of gravity of whole system lie in the same vertical line with container.Then, the footing is subjected to vertical harmonic loading using a rotating mass type mechanical oscillator to simulate different dynamic lo
... Show MoreThe study is devoted to both static and earthquake response analysis of retaining structures acted upon by lateral earth pressure. Two main approaches were implemented in the analysis, namely, the Mononobe-Okabe analytical method and the numerical Finite element procedure as provided in the ready software ABAQUS with explicit dynamic method. A basic case study considered in the present work is the bridge approach retaining walls as a part of AL-Jadiriya bridge intersection to obtain the effects of the backfill and the ground water on the retaining wall response including displacement of the retaining structure in addition to the behavior of the fill material. Parametric studies were carried out to evaluate the effects of several factors
... Show MoreIn this paper, a shallow foundation (strip footing), 1 m in width is assumed to be constructed on fully saturated and partially saturated Iraqi soils, and analyzed by finite element method. A procedure is proposed to define the H – modulus function from the soil water characteristic curve which is measured by the filter paper method. Fitting methods are applied through the program (SoilVision). Then, the soil water characteristic curve is converted to relation correlating the void ratio and matric suction. The slope of the latter relation can be used to define the H – modulus function. The finite element programs SIGMA/W and SEEP/W are then used in the analysis. Eight nodded isoparametric quadrilateral elements are used for modeling
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