Supporting data for "New Washing and Sieving Method for Separation and Evaluation of Soil Particles to Nano-size"
These datasets support the thesis titled "New Washing and Sieving Method for Separation and Evaluation of Soil Particles to Nano-size". The data mainly includes the raw data of the laboratory experiments, the analysis results, and many figures, and tables. Some of the data have been published. The title of the uploaded folder corresponds to the content of the paper in the thesis.
The datasets in Chapters 2 and 3 are used for analyzing the new washing and sieving method for separating general soil into individual particles from gravel, sand, silt, to clay. This method extends the standard wet sieving method using steel sieves to sieve gravel and sand particles greater than 0.063 mm and using nylon sieves with aperture sizes from 48 μm, 38 μm, 14 μm, 12 μm, 6.3 μm, 4 μm, 3 μm, 2 μm, 1 μm, 800 nm, 500 nm, 400 nm, 200 nm, to 100 nm, respectively. The stereomicroscopic and SEM images check for individual particles verifies the correctness of particle sizes.
The datasets in Chapters 4 to 7 are used for establishing a refined approach to evaluate the geometrical, physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties of general soil particles. Part I applies the proposed washing and sieving method to separate general soil into many sub-groups of particles with known size ranges. Part II uses standard laboratory test techniques to assess the properties of individual particles. These techniques include dynamic image analysis particle measurement, stereomicroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Atterberg limits test, permeability test, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) tests.
The datasets in Chapter 8 are used for expanding the proposed washing and sieving method for basic soil classification of the other 45 types of soils from 37 sites throughout China. These soils are mainly collected from paddy land, dry farmland, forest, woods, natural hillside slopes, and public fill bank. Their particle size distributions, some physical properties, and refined soil names are briefly described in this study.