Distributions of Particle Sizes and Mechanical Analysis of Different Clay Types

Abstract

Clay is an earth resource that important raw material for various kinds of industrial applications because of the consistency of the most of physical and chemical properties of that clays for the relevant requirements. Simultaneously, the analysis of particle size and grain size distribution of clay plays an important setting on the further analysis of some advanced characteristics of such clays because the particle size, grains size and the arrangements are the elementary approaches of the behaviors of those clays. In the existing research mainly there were expected to investigate the particle size distributions and important mechanical properties of three different selected clay types that available in Sri Lanka. The clay samples were collected from three different locations and stored. The testing of natural moisture contents, dry sieve analysis, wet sieve analysis and testing of the compressive loads of prepared bricks were done separately with respect to each type of clay. As the major outcomes of the above analysis, there were obtained 14.49%, 21.45% and 25.97% water contents from anthill clay, brick clay and roof tile clay. According to the particle size distributions of clays, mainly there were identified gap graded, uniformly graded and well graded arrangements in order of anthill clay, brick clay and roof tile clay. In addition, 59.90%, 37.36% and 72.38% finer weight percentages were found with respect to anthill clay, brick clay and roof tile clay. The roof tile clay brick was not cracked even through the applied maximum compressive load was 29200 lb while the brick prepared by brick clay was cracked under the load of 15400 lb and the cracking load for anthill clay was 17500 lb.