SOIL RECONSTRUCTION ON SURFACE MINED LAND USING A PROTOTYPE MECHANICAL SYSTEM

摘要

Soil compaction due to heavy earth moving equipment remains an impediment for the surface mining industry to return prime farmland back to premining performance. The purpose of this investigation was to fabricate and evaluate a mechanism, called the "Soil Regenerator", for constructing the top- and sub-soil profiles without the introduction of machinery traffic in order to minimize compaction during reclamation. The prototype system was mounted on the front of a bulldozer. Windrows of soil were constructed using a scraper or bulldozer for the mechanism to process. The bulldozer engaged the windrows allowing soil to rise up the blade and be agitated, transported, and deposited by a helicoid auger resulting in a 0.9 m deep berm adjacent to the bulldozer. An uncompacted soil medium was built by making successive parallel passes. Testing resulted in processing capacities ranging from 330 to 804 m~3/hr for the prototype, which was much less than the projected theoretical design capacity of 2680 m~3/hr. However, dry bulk densities equal to or less than 1.0 Mg/m~3 were produced along with penetrometer measurements below 0.7 MPa. These results proved that the 'Soil Regenerator' was capable of eliminating soil compaction during reclamation of surface mined land.