Soil stabilization properties of flexible intruders

In many locations, soil is held in place by the roots of plants. When these plants are removed or die, the soil loses its cohesive strength and erodes away. We seek to create artificial soil stabilizers that use the same physical principles as the plant roots. To investigate how flexible materials can stabilize soil, we use photoelastic particles to analyze the forces within a system when a flexible intruder is introduced to the system. We report on the increase in system forces as an effect of the flexible intruder and compare it to experiments with plant roots. Since soil is a granular material, using this method to increase the forces within patches of soil may help prevent erosion or landslides.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Luginbuhl, Katharine

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anette E. Hosoi.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74450

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/74450