I-Corps: Soil Fines Content Measuring Device

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种精确测量现场颗粒含量的设备。提出的技术是针对岩土工程行业，以减少时间和成本的传统实验室测试方法。土壤中细粒的数量往往控制着地质构造的微观行为和宏观反应。土壤中细小物质的存在会明显影响岩土工程的广泛应用，例如地基设计、土结构的渗流分析、井介电常数的评估、材料对借用地点的适用性以及地基的液化潜力。因此，土壤类型及其基本特征的现场识别在岩土工程中具有十分重要的意义。该设备是一种便携式、低成本的解决方案，可提供实时数据，在现场调查过程中可以更快、更有效地做出决策。本文还对土壤粒度分布的数据进行了分析和解释，为工程公司、材料测试公司、监管机构和环境监测机构提供了有用的数据。该技术可提高现场调查和环境监测的效率、准确性和成本效益。这将最终提高基础设施项目和环境管理的质量和安全性。这个I-Corps项目是基于一种技术的发展，通过测量粗粒和细粒土壤组分的相对体积来评估土壤中细粒含量的估计原理。目前，为了评估土壤特性，需要大量的实验室测试，主要包括粒度分析。开发并测试了一个专用装置，将提出的基于体积的原理测量细粒与标准样品洗涤方法进行比较，以验证测量结果。研究表明，该装置具有±5的高精度，可用于土壤中细粒含量的测量。此外，与需要几个小时才能完成的标准洗涤测试结果相比，发现拟议的设备具有时间效率，只需5至15分钟即可完成。该设备基于体积的原理可以减少对大量实验室测试的需求，减少对传统测试方法的依赖，并在现场提供快速的结果。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a device to accurately measure fines content in the field. The proposed technology is aimed at the geotechnical engineering industry to reduce the time and cost of traditional laboratory testing methods. The amount of fines in soils often controls the microscopic behavior as well as the macro response of geologic formations. A wide spectrum of applications in geotechnical engineering can be appreciably affected by the presence of fine material in soils, e.g., foundation design, seepage analyses for earth structures, evaluation of well permittivity, material suitability for borrow sites, and liquefaction potential of foundations. Therefore, field identification of soil types and their basic characteristics is of great importance in geotechnical engineering. The proposed device is a portable, low-cost solution to provide real-time data, allowing faster and more efficient decision-making during site investigations. Data analysis and interpretation of the soil particle size distribution is included do, which will be helpful to engineering firms, material testing businesses, regulatory organizations, and environmental monitoring organizations. The proposed technology may help site investigation and environmental monitoring efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. This will ultimately result in higher quality and safety for infrastructure projects and environmental management.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a technology to assess the principle of estimating fines in soil content by measuring relative volumes of coarse-grained to fine-grained soil fractions. Currently, for evaluation of soil characteristics, extensive laboratory testing comprised primarily of grain size analysis is needed. A dedicated device was developed and tested comparing the proposed volume-based principle to measure fines to the standard sample washing methods to verify the measurements. The study indicated the device provided high accuracy of ± 5 and showed that the device is comparable for measuring fines content in soils. In addition, compared with the results of the standard wash tests that take a few hours to perform, the proposed device was found to be time efficient, taking 5 to 15 minutes to complete. The proposed device's volume-based principle may reduce the need for extensive laboratory testing, reducing reliance on traditional testing methods and providing rapid results in the field.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.