Discussion of “Fines Classification Based on Sensitivity to Pore-Fluid Chemistry” by Junbong Jang and J. Carlos Santamarina

Abstract

Atterberg limits of fine soils are strongly influenced by particle-fluid interaction phenomena, fluid chemistry, particle mineralogy, and testing procedure (Koumoto and Houlsby 2001). The original paper proposed a very interesting approach for soil classification considering particle-fluid interactions. The discussers consider that the additional data required for the evaluation of the impact of the fluid chemistry on liquid limits can be considered of great importance for several actual and new geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering problems, including soil microstructure, and mineral-contaminant interactions during mass transport. The authors proposed classifying fine soils by determining their liquid limits using three different fluids: distilled water, kerosene and brine (1-M NaCl solution) with the purpose of determining the electrical and dielectric susceptibility of soil particles with regard to the formation of double layers around particles. From the different liquid limits the proposed methodology includes the evaluation of the electrical sensitivity as complementary data to the traditional description of soil plasticity.