This article introduces the uses of transparent synthetic soil for geotechnical problems using optical system, including transparent materials, sample preparation, geotechnical properties, experimental methods, and applications in physical modeling. Four typical kinds of transparent synthetic soil are shown and compared. For amorphous silica powder, normally the consolidated amorphous silica has a higher normalized strength but a lower modulus than the natural clays. For amorphous silica gels, the stressstrain behaviors are consistent with the typical stress-strain behaviors of sand for both dense and loose conditions. For fused silica, it has a higher shearing strength and higher modulus than the natural sand does; the deviatoric stress increases with the confining pressure, but the stress-strain curves of fused silica and the natural sand are particularly similar. For glass sand, with increasing of the relative density, the strainstress relationship varies from strain hardening to stress softening, while its failure form is essentially the same as that of standard sand. According to the geotechnical properties of four typical materials of transparent synthetic soil grain, they are used to simulate different conditions and analyze practical engineering problems in different physical model tests. The process included the generation of a speckle pattern created by the interaction of laser light with transparent particles. Using digital image processing technology, speckle patterns can be obtained and used to calculate the displacement field. By utilizing this optical system, transparent synthetic soil can be used to nonintrusively investigate internal soil deformation, flow problems, and ground movement in physical model tests. Finally, both the advantages and disadvantages of the transparent soil experimental technique are analyzed.
Quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) based on the octanol/water partition coefficient were employed to predict acute toxicities of 36 substituted aromatic compounds and their mixtures. In this study, the model developed by Verhaar et al. was modified and used to calculate octano/water partition coefficients of chemical mixtures. To validate the model, acute toxicities of these chemicals were measured to Vibrio fischeri in terms of EC50. The results indicated that the obtained QSAR models could be used to predict toxicities of samples consi sting of these substituted aromatic compounds, individually or in combinations. The obtained equations were proved to be robust enough by using the leave-one-out test method. By classifying these chemicals into two groups, polar and non-polar, the toxicities of chemical mixtures within each group can be predicted accurately from their calculated partition coefficients.
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