Characterization of Geomaterials by Means of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

MONTORO, MARCOS ALEXIS; CERIONI, LUCAS; PUSIOL, DANIEL

París

Congreso; 5th International Conference of Young Geotechnical Engineers; 2013

Ecole des Ponts et Chausees.

ABSTRACT - Pore size and pore sizes distribution of soils and rocks control many hydraulic and mechanical properties of natural geomaterials such as hydraulic conductivity and shear resistance. Regarding their importance there are no simple techniques to measure pore size. Traditional pore size distribution measurement techniques include mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and digital analysis. Nuclear magnetic resonance allows indirectly and qualitatively determining pore size distribution of a porous material by measuring the magnetization decaying curve and analyzing the transversal relaxation time distribution curve. In this research we measured the magnetization decaying curve obtained by a Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill pulse sequence. We performed a transversal relaxation time (T2) determination on samples with selected sizes of sand grains, well graded sands, silty sand, silt and clays. Obtained results show that T2distribution isexponentially correlated with the mean grain size.