Impact of Rationing on The Properties of Cement-Treated Gypsum Canals

Abstract

The scarcity of irrigation water requires procedures of specific. One of these procedures is the implementation of the rationing system (a period of the irrigation followed by a period of the dry). This system can have an impact on the properties of irrigation channels. Therefore, the study of rationing system for irrigation channels is important in both water resources and civil engineering, especially if they are constructed with gypseous soil. In order to assess the rationing system on gypseous canals stabilized with a specific ratio of cement, practical experiments were conducted to detect the effect of wetting and drying cycles on the physical and hydraulic behavior of this soil and calculation of some properties of soil such as scouring, grain size and gypsum content of soil at each cycle (10 days wetting and 10 days of drying). Where the gypseous soil with gypsum content 65 % was brought from Lake Sawh-Iraq to the hydraulic laboratory at the University of Baghdad, Physical and chemical tests were carried out according to the standard classification system. The laboratory work includes construction of a laboratory flume with gypseous soil to calculate the scouring of the canal and effect grain size of soil by two methods (the standard sieve analysis and Particle size absorptive test) and also calculate gypsum content at each rationing cycle, where the channel consists of two stages of operation, the one for untreated soil (4 cycles operation) and the other for soil mixed with 10% cement (5 cm of cement mixture above 5cm soil) 4 cycles also. The results show that the rationing cycles reduce the scouring of canal in the case of untreated soil by 56.6% and in the case of treated soil 82%. The rationing system led to course the gradient of soil according to two methods. Also its reduction of the gypsum content in the case of untreated soil by 43% and in the case of treated soil 45.6%. Thus, conclude that the rationing system leads to a positive effect on some properties of gypsum soils and the lining of irrigation channels