Soil loss and displacement by heavy equipment in forest road subgrading projects

Forest soil is an important component of the natural environment, and is a primary medium for many biological activities. In this study, soil loss and displacement by excavator and bulldozer （heavy equipments） were measured on cut and fills slopes of forest roads located in Mazandaran province, lran. The volumes of soil losses were estimated by prismoidal analyses of cut and fill slopes deformation between two time treatments （under subgrading and two years later） in slope classes of 30-50% and 50-70%. Weights of soil losses were calculated by multiplying the volumes of soil losses （cm^3） to the general bulk density （1.3g/cm^3）. Soil displaced area by heavy equipment was evaluated according to earth working width. Results indicated that heavy equipment has significant effect on deformation of cut slope gradient and fill slope length （p〈0.0001）. During the two-year period, the cut （p〈0.0002） and fill （p〈0.0001） slope gradients were significantly deformed in different slope classes. The average soil loss by excavator and bulldozer were 160.35 t/ha·yr and 429.09 t/ha·yr, respectively. Moreover, the soil displaced area during the subgrading process by bulldozer was greater than excavator in both two slope classes （p〈0.05）. Soil loss and displacement in forest roads can be rednced by applying powerful excavators in subgrading project, especially in steep terrains.     

Scour and flow field around a spur dike in a 90° bend

Spur dike is an important element in fiver training that creates rapid variations in flow field, sediment transport and bed topography. The mechanism of flow and sediment transport in a channel bend is very complex, especially when a spur dike is constructed in a bend. Most of previous investigations on flow behavior and scour around spur dike were carried out in straight channels. In this paper results of experiments on flow field and scour around a spur dike in a 90 degree channel bend are presented, Sand with uniform grain size was used as the bed material, Experiments were conducted for different locations and different lengths of spur dikes at the bend with different values of discharge, The three dimensional flow fields around a spur dike were investigated, The maximum depth of scour was correlated to the Froude numbers, lengths and the locations of spur dike in the bend.     

Wind energy potential assessment using Weibull distribution with various numerical estimation methods: a case study in Mersing and Port Dickson,Malaysia

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - In this study, the Weibull distribution with various numerical estimation methods is utilized for the assessment of wind energy potential in Mersing and Port...     

Application of soft-computing techniques in forecasting sediment load and concentration

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates conventional and soft-computing methods for the estimation of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) and load (SSL) in rivers. Frequently used methods of sediment rate curve (SRC) and multi-nonlinear regression, and soft-computing methods of multi-layer perceptron, multi-linear regression and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system are implemented using various hydrological and hydraulic parameters for the Little Kickapoo Creek Watershed, Illinois, USA. All methods performed equally well in the estimation of SSL, without any noticeable outperformance from any from the methods. However, the application of soft-computing methods decreased SSC estimation errors considerably as compared to the results of SRC. The results are significant in the way they reconcile traditionally used hydrological parameters into the soft-computing methods. Overall, soft-computing methods are recommended for the estimation of SSC in rivers because of their reasonably better performance and ease of implementation.