The shear strength of soil is one of the most important soil properties that should be identified before any foundation design. The presence of gypseous soil exacerbates foundation problems. In this research, an approach to forecasting shear strength parameters of gypseous soils based on basic soil properties was created using Artificial Neural Networks. Two models were built to forecast the cohesion and the angle of internal friction. Nine basic soil properties were used as inputs to both models for they were considered to have the most significant impact on soil shear strength, namely: depth, gypsum content, passing sieve no.200, liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity index, water content, dry unit weight, and initial voids ratio. Multi-layer perceptron training by the backpropagation algorithm was used in creating the network. It was found that both models can predict shear strength parameters for gypseous soils with good reliability. Sensitivity analysis of the first model indicated that dry unit weight and plasticity index have the most significant effect on the predicted cohesion. While in the second model, the results indicated that the gypsum content and plasticity index have the most significant effect on the predicted angle of internal friction.
The study included isolate and diagnose fungus Fusarium solani of the local soil and purified and development in the PDB medium and the filtrate extracted using a solvent (Ethyl acetate) to obtain the fungal secondary metabolites extract. This extract has shown bioactivity against both reference isolates (E.coli (ATCC25922) and S.aureus(NCTC6571)) and pathogenic isolates S.pyogenes, K. pneumonia and S.typhimurium using agar disk diffusion technique , The diameters of the inhibition zones of fungal secondary metabolites24.0 mm against E.coli and 31.5 mm against S.aureus,and 34.0 mm against K.pneumoniae and 18.0 mm against S.pyogenes and 33.5mm against S.typhimurium. The test revealed the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the fungal
... Show MoreOne of the common geotechnical problems is the construction on soft soil and the improvement of its geotechnical properties to meet the design requirements. A stone column is one of the well-known techniques used to improve the geotechnical properties of soft soils. Sometimes thick layers of soft soil imposed the designer to use floating stone columns for improvement of such soil; in this case, the designer will be lost the end bearing of the stone column. In this study, the effects of several patterns of floating stone columns distribution under footing on the bearing capacity of soil and the distribution of excess porewater pressure are investigated. The soft soil used in this study has a very low undrained shear strength (cu) of
... Show MoreSoil wetted pattern from a subsurface drip plays great importance in the design of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) system for delivering the required water directly to the roots of the plant. An equation to estimate the dimensions of the wetted area in soil are taking into account water uptake by roots is simulated numerically using HYDRUS (2D/3D) software. In this paper, three soil textures namely loamy sand, sandy loam, and loam soil were used with three different types of crops tomato, pepper, and cucumber, respectively, and different values of drip discharge, drip depth, and initial soil moisture content were proposed. The soil wetting patterns were obtained at every thirty minutes for a total time of irrigation equ
... Show MoreCrop production is reduced by insufficient and/or excess soil water, which can significantly decrease plant growth and development. Therefore, conservation management practices such as cover crops (CCs) are used to optimize soil water dynamics, since CCs can conserve soil water. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of CCs on soil water dynamics on a corn (
Actinomycetes are free, spore-forming, high (G+C) ratio (>55%) saprophytic microorganisms that are widely distributed in most soils, colonize plants, and are prevalent in water. This is frequently accompanied by the production of filament airborne mycelium. Actinomycetes are well-known microcolonies for creating antibiotics and other critical bioactive components that are beneficial to humans. Approximately 70% to 80% of commercially available medications and antiviral active compounds have been synthesized so far. Secondary metabolites produced by microbes have the potential to be used in a variety of sectors, including antimicrobial agents, enzyme technology, pigment manufacture, antitumor agents against cancer cells, and toxin pr
... Show MoreUltrasonic Extraction method followed by gradient HPLC was carried out for the simultaneous determination of four insecticides are [imidacloprid (Imi), thiamethoxam (Thi), indoxacarb (Ind) and abamectin (Aba)] used to combat the major insect pests in Iraq, whitefly, Dubas Bug, worms fruits as well as to combat the spiders – dream respectively in eco-soil samples. The extraction recovery was in the range of 99.77 to 109.1 %. The dissipation kinetics and residual levels of these insecticides in soil sample was studied under field ecosystem. The half-life of the mix insecticides was determined. The half-life was in range of 0.38 to 4.06 days with the soil samples were brought from the Agricultural Land called Nahrawan located in th
... Show MoreOil pollution of the soil due to a leakage in oil tubes, transportation of products, or during oil excavations can change the soil physical and mechanical, chemical, and biological properties. Consequently, the soil may or may not be eligible for engineering construction projects and it may need a significant treatment. Therefore, it is required to have a better understanding of the general behavior and the corresponding geotechnical properties upon pollution particularly for those areas associated with oil explorations and industry like Thi-Qar Governorate. Fine and coarse soils from two sites at the University of Thi-Qar are artificially contaminated with oil products ranging from 0% to 10% of their dry weight. Testing programs have been
... Show MoreOne of the main environmental problems which affect extensively the areas in the world is soil salinity. Traditional data collection methods are neither enough for considering this important environmental problem nor accurate for soil studies. Remote sensing data could overcome most of these problems. Although satellite images are commonly used for these studies, however there are still needs to find the best calibration between the data and real situations in each specified area. Landsat satellite (TM & ETM+) images have been analyzed to study soil pollution (Exacerbation of salinity in the soil without the use of abandoned agricultural for a long time) at west of Baghdad city of Iraqi country for the years 1990, 2001 & 2007. All of the th
... Show MoreIn this research the relation between skin resistances and standard penetration test of over consolidated
clay soils has been studied. The research includes doing boreholes at Babil governorate in Iraq to get
undisturbed samples and standard penetration test. Determination skin friction from direct shear test between
smooth concrete and soil was explored in laboratory for design purposes and correlated with standard
penetration test values. In many foundation design problems, the shear strength between soil and
foundation materials were estimated or correlated without any direct methods for measurement.
Twelve strain controlled direct shear tests were performed simulate the shear strength interaction
between smooth c