Novel direct shear apparatus to evaluate internal shear strength of geosynthetic clay liners for mining applications, A

Includes bibliographical references.2016 Fall.The use of geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) in engineering practice has grown extensively over the past three decades due to application of this material containment applications such non-hazardous solid waste, residential and commercial wastewater management, roadways, and other civil engineering construction projects. This growth has been supported by an enhanced understanding of the engineering properties of GCL as well as hydraulic and mechanical behavior for different applications. In particular, the internal shear strength of GCLs is an important design consideration since GCLs often are installed on sloped surfaces that induced internal shear and normal stresses. The objective of this study was to develop a direct shear testing apparatus to measure the internal shear strength of GCLs for use in mining applications. The direct shear apparatus was designed to support the following testing conditions for needle-punched reinforced GCLs: hydration and testing in non-standard solutions (e.g., pH ≤ 1 or pH ≥ 12); testing under high normal stresses (up to 2000 kPa); and testing at elevated temperatures (up to 80 °C). Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene GCL shear boxes were developed to facilitate testing 300-mm-square and 150-mm-square specimens under displacement-controlled conditions. Experiments were conducted on 150-mm-square and 300-mm-square GCL specimens to (i) evaluate gripping surface effectiveness as a function of peel strength and normal stress, (ii) assess hydration procedures to adopt into a systematic shear-testing protocol, (iii) assess stress-displacement behavior for 150-mm and 300-mm GCL shear tests, and (iv) develop failure envelopes for peak shear strength (τp) and large-displacement (τld). Shear behavior and peak and large-displacement shear strengths measured on both 150-mm and 300-mm square GCL specimens compared favorably to one another as well as to data from a previous study on a similar GCL. These comparisons validated the direct shear apparatus developed in this study and support the use of small GCL test specimens to measure internal shear behavior and shear strength of reinforced GCLs. Furthermore, the pyramid-tooth gripping plates developed to transfer shear stress from the interfaces between geotextiles of the GCL and shear platens to the internal region of a GCL were effective for a needle-punched GCL with peel strength of 2170 N/m and at normal stress ≥ 100 kPa

Study On The Acoustic Characteristics Of Natural Date Palm Fibres: Experimental And Theoretical Approaches

The present study deals with the acoustic performance of natural fibres originated from the date palm empty fruit (DPEFB) fibres which is mainly considered as agricultural waste. The fibres were processed and fabricated to be sound absorber samples with two different densities of 100 kg/m3 and 200 kg/m3 and with thicknesses of 10–40 mm. The normal incidence absorption coefficients of the sound absorbers were measured using an impedance tube based on ISO 10534-2. The effects of fibre density and sample thickness are discussed. The findings reveal that for density of 100 kg/m3 the absorption coefficient is 0.6–0.8 above 1.5 kHz for the samples with the thickness of 20 mm and 30 mm. For the thickness of 40 mm, the values even reached the value of 0.9. The values can reach 0.7–0.8 above 1 kHz for the density of 200 kg/m3. Mathematical model using the optimized Delaney-Bazley model with Nelder-Mead simplex method is shown to successfully predict the sound absorption coefficient of the fibre samples. The Johnson-Champoux-Allard model follows the trend of the absorption coefficient, but underestimates the measured data at high frequencies above 2.5 kHz

Effects of diamond-like carbon and tungsten-carbide carbon coatings on tribological performance of cam–tappet conjunction

Cam–tappet contacts are responsible for ~7.5% of the internal combustion engine’s (ICE) total frictional losses. The application of coatings can improve the tribological performance of these contacts. In this paper, the application of a WC-C coating as a novel approach for cam–tappets in comparison with DLC coating is investigated. The tribological performance of the coated contacts are evaluated by a novel model comprising combined implicit analytical and explicit numerical methods. This model considers the coupled tribo-dynamic behaviour whilst obtaining detailed tribological performance. The combined approach provides a computationally efficient platform. The results show that application of DLC or WC-C can improve the film thickness value by up to 41%. They can improve boundary friction, whilst increasing the viscous friction