Strength Evaluations for Treated peat with Cement and Polypropylene Fibres using CBR Tests
Peat or organic soils are those types of soils that contain a significant amount of organic material derived from plants or animals. Although peat deposits create obvious topographic features such as swamp and bogs, others are buried underground, having been covered with inorganic alluvial soils. These often are difficult to detect and are the source of differential settlements when subjected to loads from civil engineering projects. This article describes a laboratory study on treating peat using ordinary Portland cement (OPC) as binding agent and polypropylene fibers as additive. Due to high initial water content of peat, the usual moist curing technique used to cure the treated peat samples is not used and air curing method is used instead. Beside routine laboratory tests on plain peat, strength evaluation test on the treated peat samples with cement and fibres used in the research was California bearing ratio (CBR). Air curing period used was 90 days for the CBR (soaked and un-soaked) test samples. Various amounts of cements ( 15, 30 and 50%) as well as 0.15% of fibres were used to treat plain peat samples. The result of CBR tests show significant strength improvement of stabilized peat through curing period. Also as the cement amounts increase, treated samples gain more strength, while polypropylene fibers when added to the treated peat with cement not only give more strength values, rather contribute a considerable amount of uniformity and intactness to the cement treated peat
Some experiences on the stabilization of Irish peats
This paper presents the findings of a study into the engineering properties of two peats from the Irish Midlands that were mixed with various binders to form a stabilized soil. The study comprised an investigation of the increase in unconfined compressive strength over time achieved using different binders for both peats and a comprehensive series of triaxial and compression tests on one peat when mixed with cement. A stabilized structure (i.e., a stabilized surface layer and a stabilized column) was tested in a large testing chamber in Trinity College to compare the laboratory parameters with those interpreted from the results of the large-scale test. The study showed that the engineering properties of the peat were considerably improved when mixed with some binders, however the degrees of improvement were markedly different for the two peats that had similar organic content. The formation of the stabilized soil structure within the testing chamber significantly reduced the amount of settlement when comp...
Bevel RIE application to reduce defectivity in copper BEOL processing
Bevel etch used during wafer fabrication for semiconductor devices is discussed. In this case, the bevel etch process was utilized in middle of the line processing (MOL) to reduce back end of line (BEOL) defectivity. Tungsten and titanium nitride films, from the formation of contacts to the transistors, extend into the bevel region of the wafer and have been shown to initiate arcing. This can spread foreign material defects on the front side of the wafer in various BEOL post processing steps including subsequent reactive ion etching, SEM metrology and film depositions. The bevel etch tool confines a plasma etch to the outer edge of the front side of the wafer (which can be individually adjusted) and can remove dielectric, organic and Ti/TiN/W films using a fluorine based chemistry.