<p> The effects of sampling on the strength and preconsolidation load of a normally consolidated natural silty clay have been studied by means of laboratory simulations of "perfect" samples, "ground" samples, "tube" samples and "bottom of failed borehole" samples. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)

No / This study aims to examine the potential of natural clay mineral from the southern part of Saudi Arabia as an effective adsorbent material for the removal of heavy metal ions of cadmium (Cd) and nickel (Ni) from aqueous solutions. The SEM analysis showed that clay particles had mixed shapes such as elongated rod-like and rectangular shape having rough corners with larger particles of 2-8 µm in size and smaller particles in the sub-micron size range. X-ray diffraction data revealed that clay particles had a good crystalline structure and composed of a mixture of various minerals including feldspar, illite, quartz, calcite, and gypsum. The BET surface area was found to be 35 ± 1 m ² /g and the average pore size and pore volume of 6.5 ± 0.5 nm and 5.7e-02 cc/g, respectively. The X-ray fluorescence analysis of clay showed main compounds of SiO₂ (47.33%), Al₂O₃ (18.14%), Fe₂O₃ (15.89%) with many others such as CaO, MgO, TiO₂, and K₂O in minor quantities. It was found that 1.2 g of clay removed up to 99.5% of Ni and 97.5% of Cd from 40 ppm aqueous solutions. The metal removal efficiencies were increased from around 95% up to 99% by increasing the pH of aqueous solutions from 4 to 11. The adsorption of Ni and Cd ions on Saudi clay was relatively fast, and up to 97% of ions were removed from solution within 45 min. The SEM-EDX and BET analysis for recycled clays further confirmed that the metal ions were removed from water through adsorption onto the clay. The experimental data fitted well with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The maximum adsorption capacity of clay for Cd and Ni from isotherms was found to be 3.3 and 2.7 mg/g respectively. The findings of this study confirm the potential role of Saudi natural clay in wastewater treatment processes as a cheap, environment-friendly and safe natural adsorbent material. / The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University for funding this work through research groups program under grant number R.G.P1./97/40.

Nous avons cherché à comprendre le comportement sous écoulement de suspensions colloïdales d'argiles naturelles. Les particules constitutives de ces argiles ont comme particularité d'être extrêmement anisotropes puisqu'elles se présentent (en moyenne) sous la forme de disques de 200 nm de diamètre pour une épaisseur de 1 nm. Ces matériaux présentent des propriétés mécaniques remarquables parmi lesquelles une forte rhéofluidification ainsi que l'apparition de seuils d'écoulement et ce, pour de très faibles fractions volumiques en particules (environ 1%). Afin de comprendre l'origine de ces propriétés mécaniques, nous avons mis en place un dispositif expérimental permettant d'effectuer simultanément des mesures de viscosité (en cellule de Couette cylindrique) et des mesures de diffusion de rayons-X aux petits angles. Le champ orientationnel de particules 2D très anisotropes en écoulement cisaillé a ainsi été mesuré. En l'absence de cisaillement, et dans la phase de liquide isotrope, les particules s'orientent librement et occupent statistiquement un volume équivalent à celui de la sphère de volume exclu englobant la particule. En appliquant un cisaillement croissant on confine les particules discoïdales, faisant passer progressivement le volume de fluide piégé dans le mouvement moyen des particules de la sphère de volume exclu à un ellipsoïde à double anisotropie. Connaissant le champ orientationnel des particules on peut alors, par le biais d'une relation viscosité - fraction volumique de type Quemada, reconstruire la rhéofluidification de ces suspensions en prenant en compte, non pas la fraction volumique en disques mais celle en ellipsoïdes de confinement / We focussed our interest on the flow behaviour of colloidal suspensions of natural swelling clays. Such systems are strongly anisotropic since the disk-shaped particles in suspensions display an average diameter around 200 nm with a thickness close to 1 nm. Under flow, and for very low volume fractions (around 1%), these materials display remarkable mechanical properties going from quasi-Newtonian liquid to yield stress gel. In order to understand the mechanisms leading to such macroscopic behaviour, we have set up an experimental device that enables us to perform simultaneously viscosity (in a cylindrical Couette cell) and small angles x-ray scattering measurements. Thanks to this Rheo-SAXS device, we measured the orientational field of strongly anisotropic bi-dimensional particles in shear flow. When no shear is applied (and in the isotropic liquid phase), the particles are randomly oriented and occupy statistically a volume equivalent to that of the sphere of excluded volume encompassing the particle. The stronger is the applied shear stress, the more confined are the disk-like particles and consequently the small amount of fluid trapped in the statistical motion of the particles decreases from that of the sphere of excluded volume to that of an oblate ellipsoid with double anisotropy. Thus, knowing the orientational field of the particles (measured by SAXS) and applying an effective approach as the one suggested by Quemada for hard spheres, we tried to rebuild the shear-thinning behaviour of these suspensions by taking the volume fraction in statistical ellipsoid instead of that of disk-shaped particles