Experimental investigation of Polyvinyl Acetat effect on wind erosion of different soils by impacting sand particles

Wind erosion is one of the main factors damaging the soils and natural resources, agricultural soils degradation, air pollution, particles transport, damaging equipments, machines and practical operations etc. Although application of polymeric materials for improvement of structural stability, increasing aggregate stability and soil stabilization increased in recent years, but a number of key parameters should be considered to select a suitable polymer as a soil stabilizer for wind erosion control. In this research, performance of Polyvinyl Acetate polymer in three different soil textures was experimentally investigated against wind together with sand particles. So, after design and fabrication of experimental wind tunnel, the erosion of polymer treated samples, was studied under maximum wind velocity of 26 m/s (at 15 cm height) together with sand particles and compared with water treated soil samples. The studied treatments were polymeric emulsion (25 g/lit) and water as stabilizer and three different soils (sand, silt loam and silty clay) in three replications. The results showed that there was significant difference between the erosion of polymer treated and water treated samples. The results also showed that, application of 25 gr/m2 Polyvinyl Acetate in the experimental conditions, reduced the soil erosion against the wind together with sand particles, due to development of interconnecting ties between the particles and covering of the soil particles surface with a thin polymer film. Adding this polymer reduced the erosion of Aeolian sands to zero and the soil erosion reduction in silty loamy and silty clayey soil samples, was 76% in comparison with water treated samples.