Effects of Different Gravel Mulching on Soil Moisture Status and Regression Model Prediction in Arid Regions

Drought is one of the main factors limiting the agricultural planting and production;gravel mulching is an effective inhibiting evaporation and water-saving planting pattern in the arid regions. In this study, experiments were conducted to study soil moisture effect and regression model with different gravel mulching, the soil moisture content and evaporation were compared that gravel mulched with different particle sizes, different thickness layer and different mulched years. The results showed that: 1) The cumulative soil evaporation of gravel mulched was only 29.3% of that bare fields. Mulching gravel could significantly reduce soil moisture evaporation. 2) The effects of inhibiting soil moisture evaporation are the best when mulch gravel thickness is 10 - 15 cm. 3) The particle size of gravel mulched is smaller, the evaporation inhibition effect will be better. Considering the water holding capacity and material economy, it is the most suitable to mulch gravel with the particle size of 3 - 5 cm. 4) Mulching gravel on the soil surface for 1 - 3 years can improve the soil moisture content. However, the gravel was mulched for more than five years, the soil moisture content decreased significantly. 5) The quadratic polynomial regression fitting model can better simulate and predict the cumulative evaporation on different gravel mulched, and the regression fitting degree R2 is more than 0.98.

Influence of accelerated curing on the compressive strength of polymer-modified concrete

In recent building practice,rapid construction is one of the principal requisites.Furthermore,in designing concrete structures,compressive strength is the most significant of all parameters.While 3-d and 7-d compressive strength reflects the strengths at early phases,the ultimate strength is paramount.An effort has been made in this study to develop mathematical models for predicting compressive strength of concrete incorporating ethylene vinyl acetate(EVA)at the later phases.Kolmogorov-Smirnov(KS)goodness-of-fit test was used to examine distribution of the data.The compressive strength of EVA-modified concrete was studied by incorporating various concentrations of EVA as an admixture and by testing at ages of 28,56,90,120,210,and 365 d.An accelerated compressive strength at 3.5 hours was considered as a reference strength on the basis of which all the specified strengths were predicted by means of linear regression fit.Based on the results of KS goodness-of-fit test,it was concluded that KS test statistics value(D)in each case was lower than the critical value 0.521 for a significance level of 0.05,which demonstrated that the data was normally distributed.Based on the results of compressive strength test,it was concluded that the strength of EVA-modified specimens increased at all ages and the optimum dosage of EVA was achieved at 16%concentration.Furthermore,it was concluded that predicted compressive strength values lies within a 6%difference from the actual strength values for all the mixes,which indicates the practicability of the regression equations.This research work may help in understanding the role of EVA as a viable material in polymer-based cement composites.