Document Type : Original Research Paper
Authors
1 Geology Department, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Campus, Tehran, Iran
2 Geology Department, Earth Science Faculty, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
3 Islamic Azad University, Zarand Branch
Abstract
Stabilization of potentially sliding terraces and natural slopes are of great importance from view point of resident security, environment protection, river engineering and water and soil conversation. Soil reinforcement using tree toots is one of the methods being studied by many researchers. Most of them have worked on the effect of root density and few of them on the root diameter leading to contradicting results. In this paper the combined effect of root diameter and density on the shear resistance of soil is investigated by series of in-situ direct shear tests. Eighteen tests were carried out on soil possessing Willow roots and the results compared with those of non rooted soil as reference. To explain the observations, a new parameter referred to as root diameter-density index (RDDI) was defined. The results reveal that an increase in RDDI causes a significant increase in the apparent cohesion of rooted soil, but a little decrease in the internal friction angle. In both cases the rate of variation decreases with increasing RDDI and tends to a little value; however the extreme values of 212% and -15% are observed respectively. As general conclusion for rooted soils, the dominance of variation of apparent cohesion with respect to that of internal friction angle results the shear resistance ameliorates within a range of RDDI, and for further values it tends to a stabilized value. Moreover, for practical purposes, a relation was developed to be used by designer engineers.
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