Characterizing fabric anisotropy of air-pluviated sands

Abstract

Sand particles depositing through air generally align their largest dimensions in horizontal plane, forming a cross anisotropic fabric. Therefore, sands display varying strength, permeability, compressibility with directions. This study characterizes fabric anisotropy in loose and dense air-pluviated sand specimens scanned by X-ray Computed Tomography (X-ray CT) using a series of image processing techniques. The principal component analysis, three-dimensional watershed analysis, and Delaunay triangulation technique are used to compute directional parameters, including particle long axes, contact normals, and branch vectors, and scalar parameters, including index void ratios, coordination number, and average branch vector length. The particle long axes and branch vectors displayed preferred horizontal directions while the contact normals displayed preferred vertical directions. The dense specimen has smaller index void ratios, larger coordination number, and smaller average branch vector length than the loose specimen.