Effect of Drying Process on the Evaluation of Microstructure of Clays using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP)

摘要

This research reviewed and investigated the effect of drying and specimen preparation method for micro-structural observation and pore size distribution measurement according to various soils and test conditions, in utilizing Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) and Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry(MIP), the major instruments for microscopic studies. Different types of soils, such as slurry state specimen of extremely high water content and reconstituted specimen from Honmoku clay, and undisturbed soils of Ariake and Osaka Pleistocene clays were used. For drying these soils, three types of drying methods such as air, oven and freeze drying were adopted for comparison. Through examining these results, it has been known that inappropriate adoption of drying method may lead to unrighteous understanding on the microstructure of fine-grained soils and that however, different drying method to the same specimen can be adopted on occasions depending on test purposes.