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.
Experiments were conducted to study axial liquid dispersion coefficient in slurry bubble column of 0.15 m inside diameter and 1.6 m height using perforated plate gas distributor of 54 holes of a size equal to 1 mm diameter and with a 0.24 free area of holes to the cross sectional area of the column. The three phase system consists of air, water and PVC used as the solid phase. The effect of solid loading (0, 30 and 60 kg/m3) and solid diameter (0.7, 1.5 and 3 mm) on the axial liquid dispersion coefficient at different axial location (25, 50 and 75 cm) and superficial gas velocity covered homogeneous-heterogeneous flow regime (1-10 cm/s) were studied in the present work. The results show that the axial liquid dispersion coeffic
... Show MoreTo achieve sustainability in the field of civil engineering, there has become a great interest in developing reactive powder concrete RPC through the use of environmentally friendly materials to reduce the release of CO2 gas produced from cement factories as well as contribute to the recycling of industrial wastes that have a great impact on environmental pollution.
In this study, reactive powder concrete was prepared using total binder content of 800 kg/m3, water to binder ratio (0.275), and micro steel fibers 1% by volume of concrete. The experimental program included replacing fly ash with (8, 12, 16) % by cement weight to find the optimal ratio, which achieved the best mechanical proper
... Show MoreIn this study, Epoxy Resin plates was prepared by mixing epoxy(A) and hardner(B)with ratio(A:B) (3:1) with different thickness (0.3-0.96)cm. The effect of thickness on optical properties have been studied (absorption ,transmission ,reflectance) also the optical constant were found like (absorption coefficient, extenuation coefficient and refraction index) for all of the prepared plates. The results have shown that by increasing the thickness of plates., the absorption intensity increase in which at plates thickness (0.3-0.96)cm the absorption intensity were(1.54-1.43) respectively, and since absorption peak for epoxy occur in ultraviolet region and exactly at wavelength(368)nm and energy gap(Eg=3.05 eV) thus their good transmittance in the
... Show MoreBixSb2-xTe3 alloys with different ratios of Bi (x=0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 2) have been prepared, Thin films of these alloys were prepared using thermal evaporation method under vacuum of 10-5 Torr on glass substrates at room temperature with different deposition rate (0.16, 0.5, 0.83) nm/sec for thickness (100, 300, 500) respectively. The X–ray diffraction measurements for BixSb2-xTe3 bulk and thin films indicate the polycrystalline structure with a strong intensity of peak of plane (015) preferred orientation with additional peaks, (0015) and (1010 ) reflections planes, which is meaning that all films present a very good texture along the (015) plane axis at different intensities for each thin film for different thickness. AFM measureme
... Show MoreRoller compacted concrete (RCC) is a concrete of no slump, no reinforcement, no finishing, and compacted using vibratory roller. When compared with conventional concrete, it contains less water content
when compared to traditional concrete. The RCC technique achieves significant time and cost savings during the construction of concrete. This study demonstrates the preparation of RCC slab of (38 ×38× 10) cm
samples by using roller compactor which is manufactured in local markets. The Hydrated lime additive is used to study the mechanical and physical properties of that RCC slab samples. This investigation is divided
into two main stages: The First stage consists of hammer compaction method with two gradation of aggregate, dense
The aim of this research is to study the influence of additives on the properties of soap greases, such as lithium, calcium, sodium, lithium-calcium grease, by adding varies additives, such as graphite, molybdenum disulfide, carbon black, corrosion inhibitor, and extreme pressure.
These additives have been added to grease to obtain the best percentages that improve the properties of grease such as load carrying, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, drop point, and penetration.
The results showed the best weight percentages to all types of grease which give good properties are 1.5% extreme pressure additive, 3% graphite, 1% molybdenum disulfide, 2.5% carbon black.
The other hand, the best weight percentage for corrosion inhibit
High temperature superconductors with a nominal composition HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8+δ
for different values of pressure (0.2,0.3, 0.5, 0.6, 0.9, 1.0 & 1.1)GPa were prepared by
a solid state reaction method. It has been found that the samples were semiconductor
P=0.2GPa.while the behavior of the other samples are superconductor in the rang
(80-300) K. Also the transition temperature Tc=143K is the maximum at P is equal to
0.5GPa. X-ray diffraction showed a tetragonal structure with the decreasing of the
lattice constant c with the increasing of the pressure. Also we found an increasing of
the density with the pressure.
The structural properties of the CuO nanopowder oxide prepared reflux technique
without any templates or surfactant, using copper nitrate hydrate (Cu(NO)3 3H2O) in deionized
water with aqueous ammonia solution are reported. The Xrd analysis data and processing in origin
pro program used to get FWHM and integral width to study the effect of different synthesis times
was studied on the structural properties. It was found that values of crystal sizes are 17.274nm,
17.746nm, and 18.560nm, the size of nanoparticles is determined by Halder-Wagner, and 15.796
nm, 15.851nm, and 16.52nm, were calculated by Size-Strain Plot (SSP) method. The Sample was
considered to determine physical and microstructural paramete
The research is concerned about studying the absorption spectrum of the solution coumarin dye C47. The chloroform solvent was used with C47 dye in three different concentrations 10-4, 10-5 and 10-6 M. The laser dye solution was prepared by dissolving the required amount of dye in chloroform alcohol, while studying absorption spectrum before and after irradiation with gamma ray by cobalt-60 source 60Co at exposure time, which are 0, 4, 6 and 18 hours with different absorbed doses 0, 136, 204 and 612 Gy. The results show that red shift in the absorption spectrum was increased by increasing the concentration of laser dye solutions , while the increase of gamma dose led to increase the red shift after irradiation, as the exposure period and irr
... Show MoreSoil stabilization with liquid asphalt is considered as a sustainable step towards roadway construction on problematic subgrade soil, there are no requirements to import good quality materials or to implement energy consumption, but to mix the readily available soil with liquid asphalt through the cold mix technique. In this work, collapsible soil obtained from Nasiriya was mixed with asphalt emulsion, lime, and combinations of lime and asphalt emulsion (combined stabilization) and tested in the laboratory for California bearing ratio in dry and soaked conditions. Field trial sections have been prepared with the same combinations and subjected to plate bearing test. The influence of combined stabilization on the structural properties in ter
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