ISSN: 1945-7545
CODEN: GTJODJ
Published Online: 9 February 2004
Page Count: 6

Free Swell Ratio and Clay Mineralogy of Fine-Grained Soils

Prakash, K
Assistant Professor, Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore,

Sridharan, A
Prof. A. Sridharari, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,

(Received 22 October 2001; accepted 13 May 2003)

Abstract

The dominant clay minerals present in fine-grained soils control the physical and engineering behavior of the soils. Determination of the dominant clay minerals in the soils, at present, requires procedures involving sophisticated instrumentation and the knowledge to interpret the results from such tests. A user-friendly approach based on free swell ratio, defined as the ratio of the equilibrium sediment volume of 10-g oven dried soil in distilled water to that in carbon tetra chloride, has emerged as a simple methodology to predict the clay mineral(s) present in the soil as either montmorillonitic or kaolinitic type quite satisfactorily. The validation of the proposed free swell ratio method has been done with exhaustive experimental data.

Keywords:
clay minerals, fine-grained soils, free swell ratio, sediment volume, X-ray diffraction

Paper ID: GTJ10860
DOI: 10.1520/GTJ10860
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