JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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Hardsetting phenomenon is an indicator of poor soil physical quality. Hardsetting soils are soils with high rate of mechanical strength increase upon drying and are hardened and/or compacted when dry out. It is difficult to till such soils. Hardsetting soils have additional limitations such as poor aeration at wet conditions, low infiltrability and high runoff and erosion. Most of Iran soils have low organic matter content and it is expected that hardsetting phenomenon occurs in some of these soils. This study was conducted to investigate the hardsetting phenomenon on 9 soil series collected from Hamadan province. Three types of mechanical strength consisting tensile strength (ITS), unconfined compressive strength (UCS), and penetration resistance (PR) were measured on the repacked soil samples prepared in the lab. The ITS, UCS and PR tests were done on the soil cores which had been prepared at bulk density (BD) equal to 90% of critical BD for root growth (0.9BDcritical). The effects of intrinsic properties on the hardsetting phenomenon were studied, too. Based on the suggested definition in “International Symposium on Sealing, Crusting and Hardsetting Soils” to International :::union::: of Soil Science, in which a hardsetting soil has air-dry tensile strength ≥ 90 kPa, one soil (medium-textured) out of the studied soils showed the hardsetting phenomenon at 0.9BDcritical. It might be concluded that medium-textured soils are more susceptible to hardsetting. For all of the studied soils, the ITS increased with the increase in clay content. The increasing impacts of clay and carbonate contents were also observed for the UCS and PR, respectively. Calcium carbonate could act as a cementing agent in between the soil particles and brings about the soil susceptibility to hardsetting. Moreover, the decreasing trend of all soil mechanical strengths was observed with water content increase. Slope (b) of the exponential model (fitted to the soil mechanical strength characteristic curve), as an index of hardsetting, had positive correlation with the sand content and negative correlation with the silt content. Overall, texture and calcium carbonate content are major and effective properties in terms of hardsetting phenomenon in Hamadan soils.

Keywords: Soil physical quality, Hardsetting phenomenon, Soil mechanical resistance, Critical bulk density, Exponential model

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