Applicability of laser diffraction analyses in soil physics practice

Abstract

In this research we present the first results how can be used laser diffraction measurement in soil physics practice. The main goals are understanding differences of particle size distribution (PSD) measurments, developing converting methods of PSD data of different determinations. In order to realization of this survey a representative soil database of Hungarian soil types was built up. We compared PSDs of 157 soil samples measured with sieve-pipette method (SPM) and laser diffractometer technique (Malvern Mastersizer 2000) (LDM). Soil textural classes were also determined using the USDA texture triangle. We used the clay/silt fraction boundary values (clay < 0.0066 mm; silt: 0.0066 - 0.05 mm) introduced for the LDM data in order to take them comparable to PSD data determined by the SPM: We got higher similarities of clay and silt fractions of the modified size boundary values. For the used dataset correspondence of texture classes derived from SPM and LDM PSD data, however is not higher than 60%.