Physico-chemical and Mechanical Behavior of Natural Clay as a Porous Medium during Convective Drying

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.