The relationship between the liquid limit of clayey soils, external specific surface area and the composition of exchangeable cations / Zależność granicy płynności od zewnętrznej powierzchni właściwej i składu kationów w naturalnym kompleksie wymiennym

Abstract

Abstract The liquid limit - wL, the external surface area - Se, the concentration of exchangeable cations - Zi and the cation exchange capacity - CEC of seventeen clayey soils were determined. Finding the correlation between the liquid limit, external specific surface area and exchangeable cation concentration was the aim of this study. Experimental study performed using soils of the external surface area within the range of 4.1 to 118.5 m2·g-1. The relative content of sodium cation (i.e. Na+/CEC) varying between 0.03 and 1.0. Obtained results point to statistically significant relationship between these three properties. The greatest predictive power of linear regression was found for soils of external specific surface area larger than 60 m2·g-1. For the soils of comparable external surface area, the liquid limit increase with increasing the ratio of the content of sodium cation to the cation exchange capacity - Na+/CEC. For the soils of comparable composition of exchangeable cations the liquid limit increase with increasing the external surface area. These relationships indicates that interparticle forces have a prominent role in determining liquid limit of clayey soils.