Tillage operations disrupt surface layers of agricultural soils, creating a loosened structure with a substantial proportion of interaggregate porosity that enhances liquid and gaseous exchange properties favorable for plant growth. Unfortunately, such desirable soil tilth is structurally unstable and is susceptible to change by subsequent wetting and drying processes and other mechanical stres...

97 5. VARIABILITY IN THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES FOR REGROWTH AND PLANTATION BLACKBUTT TIMBER IN NEW SOUTH WALES AND EVALUATING THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE TIMBER PROPERTIES 5.1 Overview The variabilities in the mechanical properties for regrowth and plantation blackbutt timber, both in the timber’s green and dried states, have been investigated in this chapter. The shrinkage behaviour was measured, ...

The lack of durability in concrete repairs induces repair failures in field and endless “repair of repairs”. Most often drying shrinkage of “new” repair material restrained by “old” concrete substrate causes cracking in the repair material, combined with interface delamination between the repair and the concrete substrate, which may also introduce chlorides, oxygen, moisture, alkali or sulphate...

Differential shrinkage between repair material and concrete substrate is considered to be the main cause of premature failure of repair systems. The magnitude of induced stresses depends on many factors, for example the degree of restraint, moisture gradients caused by curing and drying conditions, type of repair material, etc. Numerical simulations combined with experimental observations can b...

BACKGROUND Continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) users frequently report troublesome symptoms of airway dryness and nasal congestion. Clinical investigations have demonstrated that supplementary humidification reduces these symptoms but the reason for their occurrence remains unexplained. Investigations using human computational air-conditioning models are unable to reproduce or quantify the ...

Soil drying and rewetting may alter the release and availability of aged pesticide residues in soils. A laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate the influence of soil drying and wetting on the release of pesticide residues. Soil containing environmentally long-term aged (9-17 years) (14) C-labeled residues of the herbicides ethidimuron (ETD) and methabenzthiazuron (MBT) and the fungicide...

most part of durum wheat is produced in semitropical dryland regions in iran. heat and drought stresses are the main constraints in these regions. so, identification of durum wheat cultivars with high yield and tolerant to these stresses is the main breeding strategy in dryland agricultural research institute. the genotype capeiti was evaluated at gachsaran agricultural research station from 19...

In most treatments of aqueous "solutions" it is taken for granted that water is present in the liquid state and in excess, with the concentrations of solutes limited by their saturation solubilities. Hence, the thermodynamic reference states are defined as the infinitely dilute solution, a solution of unit molality, etc. In recent years supersaturated aqueous solutions have been receiving incre...

Grasslands comprise natural tropical savannah over managed temperate fields to tundra and cover one quarter of the Earth's land surface. Plant growth, maintenance and decay result in volatile organic compound (VOCs) emissions to the atmosphere. Furthermore, biogenic VOCs (BVOCs) are emitted as a consequence of various environmental stresses including cutting and drying during harvesting. Fluxes...

Drying of wild pomegranate seeds was carried out by using various drying methods to evaluate the best and feasible method of drying and to produce a value added product “anardana”. The various drying methods used were vacuum drying, oven drying, sun drying, poly-tent house drying and room drying. The experimental results showed that out of all the drying methods, sun drying method for anardana ...