Physico-chemical and Mechanical Behavior of Natural Clay as a Porous Medium during Convective Drying
Saber Chemkhi *
Laboratoire des Procédés Thermiques (LPT), CRTEn, Borj Cedria, BP. 95, Hammam-Lif 2050, Tunisie and Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Monastir (ENIM), Monastir 5000, Tunisie
Kaouther Khalfaoui
Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Monastir (ENIM), Monastir 5000, Tunisie and Institut Supérieur des Sciences et Technologie de l’Environnement (ISSTE), Borj Cedria, BP. 1003, Hammam-Lif 2050, Tunisie
Fethi Zagrouba
Institut Supérieur des Sciences et Technologie de l’Environnement (ISSTE), Borj Cedria, BP. 1003, Hammam-Lif 2050, Tunisie
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The present work consists on an experimental characterization of non-purified clay material. The survey is focused on the chemical, physical, and mechanical properties variation during the convective drying of the material. Clay identification by atomic absorption spectrophotometer and X-ray diffractometer are used to determine the exact composition. The study covers also some essential physical properties of the material such as density, volume shrinkage, and porosity in one hand, and some mechanical properties: Young modulus and the parameters of viscoelastic behavior for the other hand. The novelty is the variation of the properties function of the material moisture content. The clay was identified kaolinite as major fraction. The true density is evaluated to (2685 +/- 35 kg/m3). And Young modulus is about (15 MPa) for dried material. The results are judged to be acceptable comparing to the literature data.
Keywords: Non-purified clay, atomic absorption spectrophotometer, x-ray diffractometer, convective drying, density, volume shrinkage, porosity, young modulus, viscoelasticity