Perennial biofuel and cover crops systems are important for enhancing soil health and can provide numerous soil, agricultural, and environmental benefits. The study objective was to investigate the effects of cover crops and biofuel crops on soil hydraulic properties relative to traditional management for claypan soils. The study site included selected management practices: cover crop (CC) and no cover crop (NC) with corn/soybean rotation, switchgrass (SW), and miscanthus (MI). The CC mixture consisted of cereal rye, hairy vetch, and Austrian winter pea. The research site was located at Bradford Research Center in Missouri, USA, and was implemented on a Mexico silt loam. Intact soil cores (76‐mm diam. by 76‐mm long) were taken from the 0–10, 10–20, 20–30, and 30–40 cm depths with three plot replicates and two sub‐samples per plot replicate per depth. Soil hydraulic properties evaluated for each sample included: saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat), water retention, bulk density, and pore size distributions. Results showed with the test of Duncan's least significant differences that treatments of MI (1.18 Mg m−3) and SW (1.21 Mg m−3) had lower values of bulk density averaging across soil depth than CC (1.27 Mg m−3) and NC (1.31 Mg m). Management systems significantly increased Ksat with the biofuel treatments at 0–10 cm compared to NC system. The MI management showed a significant increase in macroporosity and fine mesoporosity as compared to other management systems. Slight changes have occurred in the measured soil physical properties for CC system compared to NC plots. Overall, increasing soil organic matter from more plant roots from long‐term biofuel cropping systems can improve soil water storage and crop productivity.
Bearing capacity of soil is an important factor in designing shallow foundations. It is directly related to foundation dimensions and consequently its performance. The calculations for obtaining the bearing capacity of a soil needs many varying parameters, for example soil type, depth of foundation, unit weight of soil, etc. which makes these calculation very variable–parameter dependent. This paper presents the results of comparison between the theoretical equation stated by Terzaghi and the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) technique to estimate the ultimate bearing capacity of the strip shallow footing on sandy soils. The results show a very good agreement between the theoretical solution and the ANN technique. Results revealed that us
... Show MoreSoils that cause effective damages to engineer structures (such as pavement and foundation) are called problematic or difficult soils (include collapsible soil, expansive soil, etc.). These damages occur due to poor or unfavorited engineering properties, such as low shear strength, high compressibility, high volume changes, etc. In the case of expansive soil, the problem of the shrink-swell phenomenon, when the soil reacts with water, is more pronounced. To overcome such problems, soils can be treated or stabilized with many stabilization ways (mechanical, chemical, etc.). Such ways can amend the unfavorited soil properties. In this review, the pozzolanic materials have been selected to be presented and discussed as chem
... Show MoreIn this research, main types of optical coatings are presented which are used as covers for solar cells, these coatings are reflect the infrared (heat) from the solar cell to increase the efficiency of the cell (because the cell’s efficiency is inversely proportional to the heat), then the theoretical and mathematical description of these optical coatings are presented, and an optical design is designed to meet this objective, its optical transmittance was calculated using (MATLAB R2008a) and (Open Filters 1.0.2) programs
Generally, direct measurement of soil compression index (Cc) is expensive and time-consuming. To save time and effort, indirect methods to obtain Cc may be an inexpensive option. Usually, the indirect methods are based on a correlation between some easier measuring descriptive variables such as liquid limit, soil density, and natural water content. This study used the ANFIS and regression methods to obtain Cc indirectly. To achieve the aim of this investigation, 177 undisturbed samples were collected from the cohesive soil in Sulaymaniyah Governorate in Iraq. Results of this study indicated that ANFIS models over-performed the Regression method in estimating Cc with R2 of 0.66 and 0.48 for both ANFIS and Regre
... Show MoreBackground: Facial disfigurement can be the result of a congenital anomaly, trauma or tumor surgery, in many cases the prosthetic rehabilitation is indicated. Maxillofacial prosthetic materials should have desirable and ideal physical, aesthetic, and biological properties and those properties should be kept for long period of time in order to reach patient acceptance. Silicone elastomer are the most commonly used material for facial restoration because of its favorable properties mechanically and physically as the biocompatibility and good elasticity. Aim of this study: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of addition of Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) Nano fillers in different concentrations on tear strength and hardness of VST 50F room tempe
... Show MoreIn this research ,Undoped Nio and 1%Li doped Nio thin films were deposited utilizing chemical spray pyrolysis on the glass substrates heated (450C). The effects of non-thermal plasma on the structural and optical properties were studied. XRD measurement shows that Nio and Nio:1%Li films were found to be polycrystalline and have cubic structure with a preferred orientation (111). Decreased crystal size after exposure especially at (7) sec. AFM data indicate that the surface roughness average and (RMS) values of the prepared doped films are increasing after exposure to plasma, the transmittance increases after doped samples exposure to plasma, it was found that the energy gap value decreased when doped samples exposure to plasma, also, thickn
... Show MoreThis thesis was aimed to study gas hydrates in terms of their equilibrium conditions in bulk and their effects on sedimentary rocks. The hydrate equilibrium measurements for different gas mixtures containing CH4, CO2 and N2 were determined experimentally using the PVT sapphire cell equipment. We imaged CO2 hydrate distribution in sandstone, and investigated the hydrate morphology and cluster characteristics via μCT. Moreover, the effect of hydrate formation on the P-wave velocities of sandstone was investigated experimentally.