The uSed Test: Combining Image Analysis with Pore Water Pressures during Sedimentation towards Characterization of the Morphological Properties of Soils

Soil particle size and shape distributions govern all aspects of civil-geotechnical engineering, from structural foundation support to seepage through earth dams. Conventional methods for size distribution use primitive sieving and hydrometer analysis. Image-based methods have previously been developed at Michigan for the sand fraction of a soil. However, silts and clay-sized particles in a soil are too small for image analysis. The proposed research will explore the use of water pressures during sedimentation of such small sized particles to obtain the percentages by weight and size of these finer grains. The results will seamlessly combine image-base methods for the sand-size particles with sedimentation pressures by the “fines” to produce a single particle size distribution. A prototype laboratory “uSed “system will be designed, built and tested during the one-year project period. The term “uSed” combines the letter “u”, which is the notation for pore water pressure in soil mechanics, with “Sed” which is short for “sedimentation”.

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Project ID: 1109