Engineering properties of older alluvium

Moisture content is one of the most crucial factors influencing soil and rock strength. This paper deals with the effect of moisture content on strength of older alluvium under dry, wet and saturated conditions. Older alluvium is semi cemented eroded deposited and reshaped by water to make non-marine setting. Specimens were tested in for shear strength, hardness and point load index. According to these results, the petrophysical properties of older alluvium decrease with increasing moisture. The strength was extremely reduced after the moisture content increased over the range of natural moisture content i.e. at saturated condition. For soil mechanics and soil engineering projects the shear strength, friction angle and cohesion assess at dry condition in order to give classification for soil strength. While the design parameters (shear strength, friction angle and cohesion) were taken at weak condition i.e. saturated and wet condition. However the difficulties and non reliable preparing regular samples at laboratory, most of samples destroyed during the sample preparation. Point load apparatus and Schmidt (rebound) hammer test did not able to record any reading during test the samples for both wet and dry condition. Older alluvium shows equilibrium between distribution of the clay/silt and gravel with percent finer approximately 38% and 38.5% respectively, and lower presence of sand with percent finer approximately 23.4%. The range of natural moisture content was within range of 17.98 to 19.65%. The results revealed that moisture content have great influence in the reduction of the shear strength t, friction angle Ø and cohesion c. When the moisture content on older alluvium deposits increased the shear strength reduced to 22.3% and to 75.3% at wet and saturated condition respectively (the shear strength equal to 57.4kPa and 18.3kPa for wet and saturated condition respectively) in comparison to the magnitude of shear strength at dry condition (shear strength at dry condition equal to 74.1kPa). The same as for friction angle, when the moisture content increased the friction angle reduced to 18.6% and 66.9% at wet condition and saturated condition respectively (friction angle equal to 55.19o and 22.45o for wet and saturated condition respectively) in comparison to the magnitude at dry condition (at dry condition friction angle equal to 67.83o). Otherwise the effective of increase the moisture content at cohesion is different i. e. the magnitude of cohesion at dry condition was equal to 21.044 kPa. At wet condition the cohesion increased to 12.7% (cohesion equal to 23.71kPa) in comparison to the magnitude at dry condition. At saturated condition the cohesion value will decreased to 54.6% (cohesion equal to 9.54 kPa) in comparison to the magnitude at dry condition

Analyzing The Strength Between Mission And Vision Statements And Industry Via Machine Learning

Mission and vision statements are critical to a company’s success both from a company’s long-term goals and appearance to potential customers. We analyze a collection of 772 mission and vision statements from companies via natural language processing. This data is hand annotated into 15 industry types. We show the distinctiveness and connectiveness of each industry via text processing and machine learning techniques. The extracted features of each industry are a telling and guiding indicator of what that industry embraces. We show high predictive power via machine learning to determine an industry by looking only at the mission and vision statement

Categorizing Top Fortune Company Mission And Vision Statements Via Text Mining

Purpose - The paper seeks to categorize mission and vision statements into clusters and demonstrate how these clusters can be profiled in the context of Globalization, Innovation and Strategy Centric features for assessment of strategic alignment, positioning and direction. Based on text mining methodology, mission and vision statements of the top 772 Fortune companies were analyzed to understand: 1) How mission and vision statements can be meaningfully categorized into clusters, 2) How attributes of each cluster can be meaningfully evaluated in the context of the degree to which Globalization, Innovation and Strategy Centric Mission and Vision statements are discovered. Clustering Toolkit (CLUTO) software was used for text mining the data collected from two websites. A recursive bisection approach has been followed to reach the desired number of six clusters, which were further analyzed through Wordle software for visual representation. The study clustered the companies in the dataset into groups in which globalization, innovation, and strategy issues were dominant. The epistemological contribution of this research includes how text mining can be used to meaningfully categorize a large dataset consisting of mission and vision statements of 772 Fortune corporations, how knowledge contained in a large dataset can be managed through the use of text mining in analyzing cluster attributes, and how these clusters can be profiled in the context of Globalization, Innovation and Strategy Centric features for assessment of strategic alignment, positioning, and direction

Combining seismic and geotechnical methods to improve the prediction of physical soil properties

Seismic investigation offers subsurface information in a cost and time effective way compared with the geotechnical methods. The seismic data (i.e. bender element data) needs to be correlated with geotechnical data allowing it to be adopted in engineering designs. However, the procedures and analysis of bender element (BE) data can be subjected to crucial errors due to several limitations in the BE tools such as the magnitude of seismic source and frequency range. In addition, little attention had been paid to adopt field BE despite the other field seismic methods having low resolution when assessing the properties of the thin targeting layers of soil as pavement layers. Therefore, this research aim was to evaluate the limitations and reliability of BE procedure in the laboratory and the field. The research had two main stages; laboratory and model stages. In the laboratory stage, the BE limitations were assessed using homogeneous and unchanged properties of polystyrene sample instead of soil. In addition, various mixtures of sand-kaolin were investigated using the shear box, compaction and BE to obtain its empirical correlation as well as the obtained result was used to construct the soil model. In the model stage, the multi-thin layers model consisting of sand-kaolin mixtures was constructed for the purpose of suggesting the field BE procedure. The laboratory BE results recommended that the two sensors relative rotation shall be less than 50o, the position of two sensors alignment ratio between the horizontal and vertical distance shall be less than 0.5, and the effect of sample boundary occured when the ratio between the distance to sample boundary and the sample thickness less than 0.38. In model stage; the recommended procedure to be adopted in the field was via placing the BE sensors spacing less than 1 m and the BE crosshole method via placing the sensors at both side of the targeted layer was the best option. However, this method required some of the testing preparation. In conclusion, the BE limitations and procedures in the laboratory and field had been evaluated and investigated then recommended the procedures to improve the reliability of the BE results

Combining seismic and geotechnical methods to improve the prediction of physical soil properties

Seismic investigation offers subsurface information in a cost and time effective way compared with the geotechnical methods. The seismic data (i.e. bender element data) needs to be correlated with geotechnical data allowing it to be adopted in engineering designs. However, the procedures and analysis of bender element (BE) data can be subjected to crucial errors due to several limitations in the BE tools such as the magnitude of seismic source and frequency range. In addition, little attention had been paid to adopt field BE despite the other field seismic methods having low resolution when assessing the properties of the thin targeting layers of soil as pavement layers. Therefore, this research aim was to evaluate the limitations and reliability of BE procedure in the laboratory and the field. The research had two main stages; laboratory and model stages. In the laboratory stage, the BE limitations were assessed using homogeneous and unchanged properties of polystyrene sample instead of soil. In addition, various mixtures of sand-kaolin were investigated using the shear box, compaction and BE to obtain its empirical correlation as well as the obtained result was used to construct the soil model. In the model stage, the multi-thin layers model consisting of sand-kaolin mixtures was constructed for the purpose of suggesting the field BE procedure. The laboratory BE results recommended that the two sensors relative rotation shall be less than 50o, the position of two sensors alignment ratio between the horizontal and vertical distance shall be less than 0.5, and the effect of sample boundary occured when the ratio between the distance to sample boundary and the sample thickness less than 0.38. In model stage; the recommended procedure to be adopted in the field was via placing the BE sensors spacing less than 1 m and the BE crosshole method via placing the sensors at both side of the targeted layer was the best option. However, this method required some of the testing preparation. In conclusion, the BE limitations and procedures in the laboratory and field had been evaluated and investigated then recommended the procedures to improve the reliability of the BE results

Assessment of Tube Well Pumping Test Performance on Different Geological Formation

Water supply-demand is increasing in line with the increment in population. Natural water resources are declining due to a few factors of a reduction of water catchment areas, river pollution and drought. This causes the raw water quantity to decrease and its quality to be contaminated and resulting in higher water treatment costs. Groundwater usage is able to solve this problem due to its less pollution and requires minimal water treatment. The groundwater is preserved in aquifer within the geological formations, i.e., in the alluvium and fractured rock. However, the groundwater yield of each formation is unknown unless constructing the tube well and performed the pumping test. The study aim is to evaluate the tube well performance via pumping test on different geological formations. This research focuses on the effect of transmissivity, hydraulic conductivity, and efficiency of the aquifer, which are step-drawdown test, constant-rate test and recovery test in tube well in the geological formation of alluvium and fractured rock. Three well-pumping tests at each formation of alluvium and fractured rock were conducted at IBS Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK), Kelantan, Sekolah Kebangsaan Chantum, Kelantan, Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Agama Tok Bachok, Kelantan, FRU Wakaf Tapai, Terengganu, Kampung Dada Kering, Kuala Lipis, Pahang, and Kampung Seri Gunung Pulai, Johor, respectively. The aquifer efficiency is obtained from the relationship between transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity. The suggested value of 75% efficiency is selected for presenting its well efficiency. The wells efficiency indicate that the alluvium formation was constantly higher between 9.39m3/h and 23.38m3/h. Meanwhile in the fractured rock formation were highly varied between 1.00m3/h and 32.33m3/h. The alluvium aquifer showed uniform water production compared to the fractured hard rock aquifer. Meanwhile, the water quantity in the fractured hard rock formation is unpredicted, which is subjected to the fractured rock characteristic

A Review of the Role of Natural Clay Minerals as Effective Adsorbents and an Alternative Source of Minerals

The minerals with unique properties such as natural clay minerals (NCMs) have promising approach in environmental and industrial sphere. In fact, under some specific conditions the NCMs could be used either as effective adsorbent material or alternative source of minerals. This chapter presents an outline of a general review of factors that affect the application ability of NCMs and a descriptive analysis of NH4+ and REE adsorption behavior and extraction of rare earth elements (REE) by an ion-exchange with NH4+ ions onto NCMs. Clays and NCMs both effectively remove various contaminants from aqueous solution and serve as alternative sources of minerals, as extensively discussed in this chapter. This review compiles thorough literature of current research and highlights the key findings of adsorption (NH4+ and REE) that use different NCMs as adsorbents or alternative sources of minerals (i.e., REE). The review confirmed that NCMs excellently remove different cations pollutants and have significant potential as alternative source of REE. However, modification and further development of NCMs applications for getting the best adsorption and the best extraction of REE onto NCMs, which would enhance pollution control and leaching system is still needed

Fabrication of Microbicidal Silver Nanoparticles: Green Synthesis and Implications in the Containment of Bacterial Biofilm on Orthodontal Appliances

Among various metal-based nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) manifest superior inhibitory effects against several microorganisms. In fact, the AgNP-based treatment has been reported to inhibit both sensitive and resistant isolates of bacteria and other disease-causing microbes with equal propensity. Keeping this fact into consideration, we executed bio-mediated synthesis of AgNPs employing extract of flower and various other parts (such as bud and leaf) of the Hibiscus rosa-sinensis plant. The physicochemical characterization of as-synthesized AgNPs was executed employing transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta potential, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and UV-Vis spectroscopy, etc. The as-synthesized AgNPs demonstrated strong antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria with equal propensity. The as-synthesized AgNPs successfully inhibited Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans), one of the main causative bacteria responsible for dental caries. Considering the fact that orthodontic appliances facilitate infliction of the oral cavity with a range of microbes including S. mutans, we determined the growth inhibitory and anti-adherence activities of AgNPs on orthodontic appliances. We performed microbiological assays employing AgNPs adsorbed onto the surface of nickel–titanium (Ni-Ti) orthodontic wires. A topographic analysis of the decontaminated Ni-Ti orthodontic wires was performed by scanning electron microscopy. In addition to antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activities against oral S. mutans, the as-fabricated AgNPs demonstrated significant inhibitory and anti-biofilm properties against other biofilm-forming bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes

Novel compact fin and tube heat exchanger made of reinforced composite plate fins

Most fin and tube heat exchangers are affected by external factors over time, leading to a decrease in their efficiency. Among the most important reasons for this problem are the materials used in the manufacture of the heat exchanger. Heat exchangers are made of materials with high conductivity and are able to withstand the harsh conditions, but most of these materials are affected by corrosion such as iron, or the occurrence of electrochemical reactions that form layers with heat resistance at the surface of the material such as aluminium and copper, which negatively affects the performance of the heat exchanger. In addition, these materials have heavy weights that are difficult to use in small applications, and sometimes their prices are high for use in projects with a limited budget. To solve aforementioned problems, it possible to be a good option to use materials which have high corrosive resistance and light weight, few research work have suggested to use polymer as a material to product the heat exchanger, due to its characteristics which may limit the problems those occur in iron, copper and aluminium

Simultaneous recovery of ammonium and phosphate from simulated treated wastewater effluents by activated calcium and magnesium zeolites

BACKGROUND In this study a sodium zeolite synthesized from coal fly ash (NaP1-NA) was modified to calcium and magnesium forms (Ze-Ca, Ze-Mg) as sorbent materials for simultaneous recovery of ammonium and phosphate from simulated treated wastewater effluents. RESULTS Increasing the temperature during the modification step to magnesium form improved the zeolite conversion. The maximum sorption capacities obtained were 123.1±9.1 mg NH4 g-1 and 119.5±7.5 mg PO4 g-1 in an ammonium/phosphate binary system for Ze-Ca, while 55.2±2.4/ 60.5 ±14.1 and 32.3±4.4/ 23.9±3.4 were obtained for Ze-Mg1 and Ze-Mg2, respectively. The sorption process is faster for Ze-Mg zeolites and the sorption mechanism that controls the overall process, for both zeolites, is diffusion into the particle according to the HPDM and SPM models. CONCLUSIONS Salt modification improved the performance of zeolites towards phosphate sorption. The sorption mechanism involves both ammonium exchange to the Mg and Ca ions, and precipitation of Ca and Mg phosphates or mixed ammonium-magnesium phosphate minerals such as brushite (CaHPO4.H2O) and struvite (MgNH4PO4). © 2017 Society of Chemical IndustryPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft