Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
Research on the Slope Protection Mechanism of Roots
1, 2Juan Wan, 2Henglin Xiao, 2Jun He and 2Lihua Li
1School of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
2School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, China
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2013 13:2429-2435
Received: December 20, 2012 | Accepted: January 25, 2013 | Published: August 05, 2013
Abstract
This study aims to investigate the slope protection mechanism of roots. In ecological slope protection, plant roots can fix soil and protect slop through biological and mechanical action. However, previous studies on the slope protection mechanism are still not deep enough and inadequate. By taking four kinds of typical plant roots along Wu-Shen Expressway as the research object, through the indoor tensile test and root morphology observation analysis, the tensile strength and ultimate tension were studied and the influence to the stability of the slope was discussed in this study. The results show that the mean ultimate tension of roots is 7.19~29.96 N. The mean tension of shrub roots is 2~4 times greater than that of herb roots. The ultimate tension of the same plant roots increases with the diameter significantly. To the range of improvement, Shrub roots exceed herb ones. It also indicates that the mean tensile strength of roots are 24.48~74.25 MPa. Compared with the steel HRB235, the tensile strength of herb roots is as great as 1/5~1/3, while Shrub roots is about 1/10~1/5. The slope stability coefficient with plant growing is a positive correlation with roots tension and root number through the sliding surface and is a negative correlation with plants weight. In addition, the slope stability coefficient is related to plant density and root morphology. The test results demonstrate that the roots tension with acute angle or right angle to the landslide surface and the roots shear stiffness with obtuse angle can improve the performance of slope’s anti-slide. Four kinds of plants can improve the stability coefficient of shallow soil. As for the slope protection effect, herbage is superior to shrub. In general, grass-shrub mixed community is the ideal system for slope protection.
Keywords:
Slope protection, roots, stability coefficient, tensile test,
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
The authors have no competing interests.
|
|
![](http://www.maxwellsci.com/images/RJASET-maxw.jpg) |
ISSN (Online): 2040-7467
ISSN (Print): 2040-7459 |
![Submit Manuscript](../images/sub.jpg) |
Information |
|
|
|
Sales & Services |
|
|
|