JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

---

Wear is the most important problem of moldboard plowshares. Because of cutting the soil, intensity of wear at the front portion of share is large and the effect of its wear on plow performance is considerable. In this research wear of the front portion of moldboard plowshares with respect to distance worked was studied. Wear of cylindrical specimens which were attached to the front portion of plowshares of a semimounted four-bottom moldboard plow was determined in five equally distance interval. The soil was silty clay loam with 13-15% moisture content and the distance worked was 250 kilometers. Statistical analysis of the data indicated that there was no significant difference in the amount of wear of the four shares. In other words, they wore down simultaneously. The wear intensity of shares decreased with increasing distance worked i.e., the amount of weight reduction being highest during the initial period of operation. This may be attributed to “work hardening” due to severe plastic deformation during wear. Two mathematical models based on regression analysis were developed for predicting wear in the front portion of plowshare. The relationship of wear with respect to the distance worked can be expressed by an exponential function having a 0.75 exponent and the relationship of wear at the front edge of shares with respect to distance from point of share by a second order function with determination coefficient of 0.93 Nearly 75% of the total wear in the front edges occurred in the 1.3 length of shares from the tip.

---

Magnetic susceptibility (χ) measurements are widely used for the evaluation of soil profile development. Fourteen soil profiles were studied in a relatively wide range of climatic conditions in Fars Province. Citrate-bicarbonate-dithionite (CBD) extraction and micro CT-Scan images were used to evaluate the source of magnetic susceptibility. The results showed that soil samples lost 23 to 91 percent of their magnetic susceptibility after CBD extraction (χCBD), reflecting differences in the source (pedogenic or lithogenic) of magnetic susceptibility. Greater values of the decrease were noticed mostly in well developed soil profiles as well as in soil surface. 22 to 89% of the decrease was observed in frequency dependence of magnetic susceptibility (χfd) after CBD extraction. A significant positive correlation (P<0.01) was obtained between χCBD and χfd in the soil studied. Micro CT-Scan images with a spatial resolution of 33 µm showed lithogenic magnetic Fe oxide (magnetite) grains.

---

Abstract
The objective of the present research was to investigate the flow properties through the bottom outlet of the Nesa dam based on numerical and experimental studies. 22 piezometers were employed to measure the static pressure through the experimental model. The bottom outlet section was divided into three blocks to measure the endangered region. The graph of cavitation numbers was plotted for different flow discharge and cavitation damage levels to compare with a safe zone to find out the areas with a high risk of cavitation. The results illustrate that block No. 1 cavitation index is located at the “possible cavitation” damage. The studies showed that the cavitation index is the dependent parameter with the height of the water at the upstream reservoir. Furthermore, for block No. 2, the level of cavitation ranged from x/L = 0.44 to 0.90 and the cavitation level is related to the velocity, and by increasing the velocity to 16 m/s, the threat of the cavitation and its consequences is raised, dramatically. Regarding block No.2 and 3, the cavitation through this block depends on the negative pressure since the negative values of the cavitation index is related to the negative static pressure and it is assumed that the negative pressure can reach the threat of major damage. Also, a comparison between different numerical turbulence models illustrates that the k-ε RNG with fine mesh showed less error with experimental values which causing the numerical model with this condition to reach an appropriate agreement between numerical and experimental simulations.