Abstract
Many studies describe soil samples by their grain/particle size distribution (GSD/PSD). Most samples are poly-disperse collections of solids. The paper reviews earlier methods to describe or fit a GSD: usually, their R2 value is in the 0.5–0.9 range. A modal decomposition method (MDM) was developed to extract from a GSD its sub-populations or modes, proportions, and specific surface area. This new MDM is easy to use in a spreadsheet and has a R2 value typically over 0.999. When remolded soil samples are taken in boreholes, information on stratification is lost, but the MDM recovers information. The MDM improves the prediction of field permeability in stratified soils, which is vital for groundwater and pollution studies. Single layers in stratified soils are unimodal, with a single population of grains. Multimodal soils are either homogeneous (till, crushed stone) or stratified (sandy aquifers). Many borehole samples have up to four modes in their GSDs. The paper gives examples of MDM for six GSDs and presents new findings for three types of sand deposits. For example, it is found that if a sand sample has a coefficient of uniformity, CU, higher than 3, the sand is stratified. By extracting more information from a GSD, the MDM helps to better evaluate material properties and also sites for their geotechnical and hydraulic properties.
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The reader may obtain free Excel files with explanations on how to perform the modal decomposition method (MDM) from Scholars Portal Dataverse (Chapuis 2020).
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Acknowledgements
The new results presented here were obtained by re-analyzing data derived from previous work sponsored by the National Research Council of Canada. The author thanks Tony Gatien, Étienne Bélanger, and Noura El-Harrak for their help in field and laboratory tests, and Coline Taveau for the photo in Fig. 8.
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Chapuis, R.P. Analyzing grain size distributions with the modal decomposition method: literature review and procedures. Bull Eng Geol Environ 80, 6649–6666 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-021-02328-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-021-02328-w