A commentary on the shape of loess particles assuming a spatial exponential distribution for the cracks in quartz

摘要

An important property of loess is a tendency to collapse on loading and wetting (hydroconsolidation) which can have serious consequences worldwide for civil engineering projects. Randomly generated particles are classified according to Zingg shape categories: disc, sphere, blade and rod. This paper differs from the previous by the same author [8] in that a uniform distribution is no longer assumed for the underlying spatial distribution. Randomly placed faults in the quartz mother-rock lead naturally to an exponential distribution for the linear dimension of the basic particle. Monte Carlo processes and analytical formulae are used to calculate the average dimensions for particles in the blade category, into which most loess has been shown to fall.