Identification of Microfabric of Kaolinite Clay Mineral Using X-ray Diffraction Technique

A new method is introduced in this study to identify the microfabric (geometric arrangement of platelets) of cohesive soil using standard X-ray diffractometer. Various sampling techniques are used to prepare the Kaolinite clay samples with different microfabrics to assess the consistency and versatility of the proposed method. This method is based on identifying the presence of basal and prism peaks from the X-ray diffraction pattern and corresponding relative intensity values. The present study also demonstrates the conditions for which Scanning Electron Micrographs (SEM) are not capable of accurately identifying the microfabric of cohesive soils. The method proposed in this study uses relative amplitudes of basal and prism peaks avoiding difficult sample and surface preparation procedures, as used by previous researchers in their microfabric identification methods. The proposed method is found to be a rapid and accurate method for identifying the microfabric of Kaolinite clay and should prove to be valuable for routine implementation for studying structured natural clays.