The goal of the current study was to create and assess the effectiveness of a hand-pulled ergonomically designed flame weeder. The developed weeder was tested in the field at three operating pressures (20, 30 and 40 Psi) and forward speeds (1.00, 1.25 and 1.50 km/h) to study their effects on plant damage, survival rates, weight preservation rates, weed management effectiveness, soil temperatures, and gas and energy consumption. Thereafter, at optimized values of forward speed and operating pressure, a comparative assessment of flame weeding with traditional methods (mechanical and manual weeding) was done in terms of weed control effectiveness, operational time, energy consumption, and cost of operation. Results showed that the optimal performance of the designed flame weeder was achieved when operated at a speed of 1 km/h and an operating pressure of 40 psi. The survival rate, weight preservation rate, weed control efficiency, change in soil temperature, recovery rate, plant damage, gas consumption, and energy consumption were observed to be 27.3 %, 32.5 %, 91.1 %, 40.74 degrees C, 8.5 %, 2.2 %, 4.05 kg/h, and 2500.24 MJ/ha, respectively, at optimized values of forward speed (1.00 km/h) and operating pressure (40 Psi). The actual field capacity, field efficiency and operating cost of the flame weeder were 0.0755 ha/h, 94.94 %, and 3620.81 (sic)/ha, respectively. Hand weeding had the best level of weed control effectiveness, but it was a laborious, time-consuming process. When compared to manual weeding, flame weeding was 50.42 % cheaper and 94.82 % faster.

The capsule expansion technique (CET) is a novel active measure to control the deformation of subsurface structures induced by underground engineering construction. CET has been applied to tunnel deformation control, but its application in pile foundations is rarely reported. In this paper, a field trial and three-dimensional coupled consolidation finite-element analysis were performed to study the interaction of capsule-soil-pile and control efficiency of CET. Field trial results verify the feasibility of CET in controlling pile horizontal deformation, and the control efficiency is 60% higher than that of Tube-a-Manchette grouting with 40%. Numerical back analyses indicate that the pile maximum displacement increases almost linearly with the expansion diameter, while the control efficiency of CET hardly changes. The total stress of the soil in front of the pile is significantly reduced by 20.3% due to the dissipation of excess pore-water pressure, resulting in the reverse displacement of the pile. High excess pore pressure induced by CET would cause the soil to bear additional stress after dissipating, leading to the reverse displacement of the soil and further diminishing the control efficiency. Moreover, control efficiency can be improved by reducing the surrounding excess pore-water pressure induced by expansion and increasing the excess pore-water pressure at the back side of the pile.