This paper reports a research work on assessing clay content effect on the water retention capacity of clayey sandy soils. At first, experimental tests were conducted to measure the soil water retention curves (SWRCs) of clayey sandy soils. A total of four different soil samples, which have clay content of 0, 15, 30 and 50%, respectively, by total soil sample weight, were measured. Secondly, a revision of a physical–chemical (PC) analytical model previously proposed has been reviewed and adopted to represent the SWRC measurements and compared for its predictive performance against the classic van Genuchten model and the original PC model. The experimental results demonstrated that clay content has a significant influence on soil water retention capacity, showing that a positive correlation generally exists between them. The modelling results showed that the revised analytical model not only produced a good representation for the soil water retention curves over whole range of soil water content, particularly at low water content side, but also provided advanced insight into the fundamental physics underlying soil water retention mechanisms. The analysis of its parametric data highlights the functions of the involved physics and their roles shaping the SWRCs, which intrinsically relate to specific surface area, pore size distribution, and particle size and shape. At last, the model was used to describe the pore size distribution from a revised concept against conventional approach. However, the revised concept and approach needs further wide verification and is open for discussion.
The gypseous soil may be one of the problems that face the engineers especially when it used as a foundation for hydraulic structures, roads, and other structures. Gypseous soil is strong soil and has good properties when it is dry, but the problem arises when building hydraulic installations or heavy buildings on this soil after wetting the water to the soil by raising the water table level from any source or from rainfall which leads to dissolve the gypsum content. Cement-stabilized soil has been successfully used as a facing or lining for earth channel, highway embankments and drainage ditches to reduce the risk of erosion and collapsibility of soil. This study is deliberate the treatment of gypseous soil by using a mixture
... Show MoreThe present study devoted to determine the ultimate lateral carrying capacity of piles foundation in contaminated clayey soils and subjected to lateral cyclical loading. Two methods have been used to calculate the lateral carrying capacity of piles foundation; the first one is two-line slopes intersection method (TLSI) and the second method is a modified model of soil degradation. The model proposed by Heerama and then developed by Smith has been modified to take into consideration the effects of heavy loads and soil contamination. The ultimate lateral carrying capacity of single pile and piles group (2×2) driven into samples of contaminated clayey soils have been calculated by using the two methods. Clayey soil samples are contami
... Show MoreHydrated lime has been recognized as an effective additive used to improve asphalt concrete properties in pavement applications. However, further work is still needed to quantify the effect of hydrated lime on asphaltic concrete performance under varied weather, temperature, and environmental conditions and in the application of different pavement courses. A research project was conducted using hydrated lime to modify the asphalt concretes used for the applications of wearing (surface), leveling (binder), and base courses. A previous publication reported the experimental study on the resistance to Marshall stability and the volumetric properties, the resilient modulus, and permanent deformation at three different weather temperatures. This
... Show MoreIn this research, a factorial experiment (4*4) was studied, applied in a completely random block design, with a size of observations, where the design of experiments is used to study the effect of transactions on experimental units and thus obtain data representing experiment observations that The difference in the application of these transactions under different environmental and experimental conditions It causes noise that affects the observation value and thus an increase in the mean square error of the experiment, and to reduce this noise, multiple wavelet reduction was used as a filter for the observations by suggesting an improved threshold that takes into account the different transformation levels based on the logarithm of the b
... Show MoreThe study presents the test results of Completely Decomposed Granite (CDG) soil tested under drained triaxial compression, direct shear and simple shear tests. Special attention was focused on the modification of the upper halve of conventional Direct Shear Test (DST) to behave as free
head in movement along with vertical strain control during shear stage by using Geotechnical Digital System (GDS). The results show that Free Direct Shear Test (FDST) has clear effect on the measured shear stress and vertical strain during the test. It has been found that shear strength
parameters measured from FDST were closer to those measured from simple shear and drained triaxial compression test. This study also provides an independent check on
The current report dealt with the effect of pesticides on the ecosystem through their impact on soil, water, and microorganisms and their impact on human health. As well as this study dealt with the biodegradation process of pesticides and the organisms involved in this process, even some previous studies proved that Bacillus spp. And Pseudomonas sp. Bacteria is the most efficient in the biodegradation of pesticides, at the same time, other previous studies dealt with the environmental factors that affect the biodegradation process of pesticides. It proved that each of the incubation periods, pH, and temperature have different effects on biodegradation. Most of the studies indicated that the best incubation period for biodegradation is 7-8
... Show MoreIn present study the effect of soil extracts of different types of soil on ability of two clinical isolates, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus to form biofilm. The extract of soil was done by using sterile phosphate buffer saline and analyzed by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopic (FTIR). Spectrophotometric method was used to check ability of the studied isolated bacteria to form biofilm on polystyrene microtiter plates. The data of FTIR showed very little difference was observed among extracts of three types of soil (soil contaminated with hydrocarbons; garden soil collected from gardens of al-jadrea, Baghdad and containers soil), but the highest difference was observed in the extract obtained from peat moss clay soil.
... Show MoreThe current study was conducted to find out the effect of the sediment source (sedimentary of Iraqi-Iranian borderline and Tigris River) on the content and distribution of feldspar minerals and their effect on the optical properties of these minerals in some soils of Wasit and Maysan province. Eight pedons were chosen to represent the study area, five of them represented sediments coming from the borderline, which included pedons of (Badra, Taj Al-Din, Al-Shihabi, Jassan, and Galat), while two of them represent the sediments of the Tigris River (Essaouira, Al-Dabouni). Finally, the pedon of Ali Al-Gharbi represented the mixing area of sediments of all the torrents coming from borderline and the sediments of the Tigris River. The diagnostic
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