Plastic soil exhibits unfavorited geotechnical properties (when saturation), which causes negative defects to engineering structures. Different attempts (included various materials) were conducted to proffer solutions to such defects by experimenting in practical ways. On one hand, these attempts aimed to improve the engineering characteristics of plastic soil, and on the other hand, to use problematic waste materials as a stabilizer, like cement kiln dust, and to reduce environmental hazards. This paper explored the shrinkage, plasticity, and strength behavior of plastic soil enhanced with cement dust. The cement dust contents were 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by dry weight of soil. An experimental series of shrinkage and plasticity tests and unconfined compression tests were carried out to explore the effects of cement dust on the quantitative amount of shrinkage, plasticity characteristics, and shear strength experienced by plastic soil. The effects of curing on soil strength were also investigated. The finding of this paper showed that the critical behavior and plasticity of plastic soil could be reduced by mixing the soil with 15% or 20% of cement dust. The undrained shear strength, cu, of plastic soil-cement dust mixtures increased with the increasing dust content up to 20%. In fact, this strength was affected by the curing period. The best enhancement was attained when the content of cement dust was 20%, and the undrained shear strength was increased more than three times at this content.
Background: The polymethyl methacrylate is the most reliable material for the construction of complete and partial dentures, despite satisfying esthetic demand itsuffered from having unsatisfactory properties like impact strength and transverse strength. This study was designed to improve the impact strength and transverse strength of heat cure acrylic resin by adding untreated and oxygen plasma treated polypropylene fibers and investigate the effect of this additive on some properties of acrylic resin materials. Materials and methods: Untreated and oxygen plasma treated polypropylene fibers was added to PMMA powder by weight 2.5 %. Specimens were constructed and divided into 5 groups according to the using tests; each group was subdivided
... Show MoreThe 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 effect of D phase polyamide (PA6)on the rheological properties, Young Modulus and the thermal expansion coefficient of two blends groups (bitumen-polyamide) were tested. The first group was for bitumen-PA6 blends and the second group for bitumen blended with polymer resulted from the crystallization of PA6-formic acid solution in water(PAFW).The obtained results proved that adding both types of polyamide has led to a rise in toughness and softening point temperature while the penetration Index approached -3 after adding the polyamide. So, all these changes make bitumen-polyamide blends more suitable for use in hot climate regions. The blends properties were explained according to the reaction that takes place between the polyamide and
... Show MoreThis study aims to determine the reasons for the increase in the frequency of sand and dust storms in the Middle East and to identify their sources and mitigate them. A set of climatic data from 60 years (1960–2022) was analyzed. Sand storms in Iraq are a silty sand mature arkose composed of 72.7% sand, 25.1% silt, and 2.19% clay; the clay fraction in dust storms constitutes 70%, with a small amount of silt (20.6%) and sand (9.4%). Dust and sand storms (%) are composed of quartz (49.2, 67.1), feldspar (4.9, 20.9), calcite (38, 5), gypsum (4.8, 0.4), dolomite (0.8, 1.0), and heavy minerals (3.2, 6.6). Increasing temperatures in Iraq, by an average of 2 °C for sixty years, have contributed to an increase in the number of dust storm
... Show MoreSoil compaction is one of the most harmful elements affecting soil structure, limiting plant growth and agricultural productivity. It is crucial to assess the degree of soil penetration resistance to discover solutions to the harmful consequences of compaction. In order to obtain the appropriate value, using soil cone penetration requires time and labor-intensive measurements. Currently, satellite technologies, electronic measurement control systems, and computer software help to measure soil penetration resistance quickly and easily within the precision agriculture applications approach. The quantitative relationships between soil properties and the factors affecting their diversity contribute to digital soil mapping. Digital soil maps use
... Show MoreExpansive soils are recognized by their swelling potential upon wetting due to the existence of some clay minerals such as montmorillonite. An effective solution was found to avoid the danger of such soils by using piles. A single pile embedded in an elasto-plastic expansive soil has been analyzed by using one of the available software which is ABAQUS to investigate the effect of applied loads on pile’s top and investigate the effect of swelling soils on load carrying capacity of the pile. The result shows that as the pile is axially loaded at its top, the axial force along the pile gradually changes from (tension) to (compression) and the pile tends to move downward. The applied load needed to initiate pile’s settlement depend
... Show MoreIn this study, the amounts of activity concentrations of naturally occurring in 10 soil samples of the Tigris river and surrounding areas collected from deferent city of Baghdad have been investigated. Tigris river is an important water source for irrigation and drinking in Iraq. This study was done during 2018 in Protection Center of the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment using a high purity germanium detector. The resolution of (HPGe) at 2keV and 30% efficiency. The results of soil sample obtained showed that the effective activity concentration of 40K are ranged from 181.4 Bq/kg in sample S6 to 286.4 Bq/kg in S7. For Raeq values are ranged from 6 Bq/m3 in sample S5 to 17 Bq/m3 in sample S3. The obtained data revealed that the me
... Show MoreThe research aims to assess the claystone exposed in the Nfayil Formation (Middle Miocene) for Portland cement (P.C.) manufacturing based on mineralogy and geochemistry. The importance of the study is to avoid the miming of the agricultural soils that are mining now for the cement industry. Claystones of Nfayil Formation and the limestone of the Euphrates Formation were used to design the raw mixture as clay to limestone (1:3). The chemical composition (%) of the designed mixture was calculated using the Alligation Alternative Method (A.A.M.) as CaO (65.52), MgO (1.05), SiO2 (21.65), Al2O3 (7.43), Fe2O3 (2.62), Na2O3+K2O (1.52) and SO3 (0.26), which are suitable for P.C. The lime saturation factor (LSF = 92.8), silica saturation fac
... Show MoreUsing an environmentally friendly chemical process, a novel nanocomposite consisting of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and silver(I) oxide (Ag2O) nanoparticles was successfully synthesized in this work, and its optical properties along with photoelectric performance were investigated. Ag2O is a narrow-bandgap p-type semiconductor with strong visible light response but exhibits poor carrier separation and structural instability during exposure to radiation. In order to overcome shortcomings encountered with Ag2O, rGO was used as a conductive support to produce rGO@Ag2O nanocomposites with improved electronic interactions. Various characterization tests, including energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS), field emission scanning electron mic
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