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Abstract
It is a well known fact that physiochemical properties (i.e., electrical attractive and repulsive forces) of fine-grained soils influence their fabric characteristics to a great extent. Many researchers have conducted sedimentation tests to validate this hypothesis. However, these tests have been conducted at room temperature and therefore, do not include the influence of thermal energy on fabric of fine-grained soils. As such, with an intention to overcome this limitation, laboratory studies were conducted wherein the slurries of commercially available soils white clay (WC), prepared in aqueous suspensions with certain electrolyte concentration, were (i) allowed to settle at room temperature, and (ii) heated at 100 °C. The fabric of the sediments so obtained by these two processes was further studied by employing mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP). This technical note presents details of these laboratory studies and highlights the fact that in the formation of soil-fabric, the thermal energy dominates over the physiochemical parameters.