Quantifying Morphology of Sands Using 3D Imaging
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 27, Issue 10
Abstract
Particle morphology plays a significant role in influencing engineering behavior of granular materials. Surface texture, roundness, and sphericity represent distinct multiscale measures needed to fully describe particle morphology. Most studies reported in the literature rely on two-dimensional (2D) projected images of particles with a few three-dimensional (3D) images that mostly focused on relatively large-size aggregate samples. In this paper, 3D synchrotron microcomputed tomography (SMT) was used to acquire high-resolution images of glass beads, F-35 Ottawa sand, #1 dry glass sand, GS#40 Columbia sand, Toyoura sand, and Hostun RF sand. New roundness and sphericity indexes are proposed and calculated for the samples based on 3D measurements of surface area, volume, and three orthogonal diameters of particles. In addition, the surface texture of particles were measured using optical interferometry technique. The measurements reported in this paper can serve as a good source for other researchers working on sands to build on these intrinsic particle properties to link engineering behavior of sands to their morphology.
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Acknowledgments
This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-1266230. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The SMT images presented in this paper were collected using the X-ray Operations and Research Beamline Station 13-BMD at Argonne Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory. We thank Dr. Mark Rivers of APS for help in performing the SMT scans. We also acknowledge the support of GeoSoilEnviroCARS (Sector 13), which is supported by the National Science Foundation, Earth Sciences (EAR-1128799), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Geosciences (DE-FG02-94ER14466). Use of the Advanced Photon Source, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory, was supported by DOE under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Surface texture measurements were conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 27 • Issue 10 • October 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 14, 2014
Accepted: Nov 14, 2014
Published online: Dec 31, 2014
Discussion open until: May 31, 2015
Published in print: Oct 1, 2015
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