One of the major problems facing the road construction engineer is the collapsible granular soil which may be used for embankment construction. Problems appears when such compacted soil come in touch with water, it exhibits cracking and uncontrolled settlement. Collapsible soils are defined as any unsaturated soil that goes through a radical rearrangement of practice and great loss of volume upon wetting, with or without additional loading. An attempt has been made in this investigation to stabilize the collapsible soil of Nasiriya with asphalt emulsion. Specimens of pure and asphalt emulsion stabilized soil have been prepared using optimum fluid content and tested. The first group of specimens of (60x60x20) cm have been tested for direct shear under various normal stresses of (27.5, 55, 83, 110, and 220) kPa. Under dry and soaked conditions. The second group of specimens of (75) mm diameter and (19) mm height have been tested for compressibility characteristics at dry and soaked test conditions. It was concluded that the cohesion has increased (30 and 9) folds and the angle of internal friction exhibits (3.7 and 8.3) folds increment for dry and soaked for asphalt stabilized soil as compared to untreated soil. The compression index (Cc) decreases by (78 and 15) % after stabilization for dry and soaked test conditions respectively, while the void ratio exhibits an increments of (21.4 and 70.5) % for dry and soaked test as compared to untreated soil.
Gypseous soil, which covers vast area in west, middle, east and south west regions of Iraq exhibit acceptable strength properties when dry, but it is weak and collapsible when it comes in touch with moisture from rain or other sources. When such weak soil is adopted for earth reinforced embankment construction, it may exhibit hazardous situation. Gypseous soil was investigated for the optimum liquid asphalt requirements of both cutback and emulsion using the one-dimensional unconfined compression strength test. The optimum fluid content was 13% (7% of cutback with 6% water content), and 17% (9% of emulsion with 8% water content). A laboratory model box of 50x50x25 cm was used as a representative of embankment; soil or asphalt stabilize
... Show MoreActivities associated with mining of uranium have generated significant quantities of waste materials containing uranium and other toxic metals. A qualitative and quantitative study was performed to assess the situation of nuclear pollution resulting from waste of drilling and exploration left on the surface layer of soil surrounding the abandoned uranium mine hole located in the southern of Najaf province in Iraq state. To measure the specific activity, twenty five surface soil samples were collected, prepared and analyzed by using gamma- ray spectrometer based on high counting efficiency NaI(Tl) scintillation detector. The results showed that the specific activities in Bq/kg are 37.31 to 1112.47 with mean of 268.16, 0.28 to 18.57 with
... Show MoreThe study area soils suffer from several problems appear as tkhesvat and cracks in the roads and waterlogging which reduces the susceptibility of soil to withstand pressure, this study was conducted on the soil of the Karkh district based on field study that included (6) samples of soil physical analyses contain different ratios of (mud, sand, silt) as percentages (52%, 45%, 3 #) respectively, and liquidity limit rate (39%) Stroke rate plasticity was (20.6%) The rate coefficient of plasticity total (19.2%)0
Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) contaminated sites at Al-Rumaila Iraqi oil fields have been characterized as a part of soil remediation project. Activity of radium isotopes in contaminated soil have been determined using gamma spectrometer High Purity Germanium detector (HPGe) and found to be very high for Al-Markezia, Al-Qurainat degassing stations and storage area at Khadhir Almay region. The activity concentration of samples ranges from 6474.11±563.8 Bq/kg to 1232.5±60.9 Bq/kg with mean value of 3853.3 Bq/kg for 226Ra, 843.59±8.39 Bq/kg to 302.2±9.2 Bq/kg with mean value of 572.9 Bq/kg for 232Th and 294.31±18.56 Bq/kg to 156.64±18.1 Bq/kg with mean value of 225.5 for 40K. S
... Show MoreMeasurements of radon gas concentrations were carried out for 12 soil samples at 3 sampling depths (surface, 5 cm and 10 cm) collected from (4) locations in south Baghdad suburbs (Bu'aitha) using solid state nuclear track detector CR-39 and sealed can technique. Radon concentrations for surface samples were ranged from 402.2 to 1538.4 Bq.m-3 with an average 994.4 Bq.m-3. Whereas, radon concentration was ranged from 813.1to 2050.4 Bq.m-3 and from 1309.8 to 4626. 1Bq.m-3 with an average values of 1359.8 Bq.m-3 and 2338.3 Bq.m-3 for 5 cm and 10 cm depths respectively. Maximum radon level was found at the location near to the river (site S4) while the minimum radon level was f
... Show MoreThe performance grading system (superpave) has provided means to incorporate binder characteristics with
pavement failure types. It’s a comprehensive system that relates climate, traffic conditions and aging with
critical pavement distress. The objective of this paper is to develop an improved asphalt binder grading
system for Iraq based on the principal of superpave. The country was divided into different zones according
to the highest and lowest temperature ranges and traffic loading. The Performance graded binder proposed
for each zone was compared with some States of USA that have same hot weather of Iraq by using Long
Term Pavement Performance (LTPP v3.1) software. Iraqi asphalt samples were tested using the Supe
Moisture damage is a primary mode of distress occurring in hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavements in Iraq. Because of the loss of bond, or stripping, caused by the presence of moisture between the asphalt and aggregate, which is a problem in some areas and can be severe in some cases, it is requires to evaluate the design asphalt mixture to moisture susceptibility. Many factors such as aggregate characteristics, asphalt characteristics, environment, traffic, construction practices and drainage can contribute to stripping. Asphalt concrete mixes were prepared at their optimum asphalt content by superpave system and then tested to evaluate their engineering properties, which include tensile strength, resilient modulus, and perman
... Show MoreFailure in asphalt mixture and distress in pavement are major issues to roads infrastructure. Selecting an appropriate chemical composition of asphalt cement is a key component in avoiding these issues. This work aimed to investigate the effect of the chemical composition of different polar fractions on the rheological and physical properties of asphalt cement. Four types of asphalt cement with penetration grades of 20/30, 40/50, 60/70 and 85/100 were divided into four fractions. Complex shear modules, rutting resistance and rotational viscosity of the asphalt cement were determined by using a Dynamic Shear Rheometer and a Rotation Viscometer, respectively. The results show that an increase in the asphaltene content and Gastel index resulte
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