The strength of carbonized wheat

The strength of carbonized wheat

Van der Putte, E.A.V.

Huisman, H. (mentor)
Braatbaard, F. (mentor)
Ngan-Tillard, D.J.M. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Section Geo-Engineering

2011-05-13

There are a lot of archeological remains in the subsurface of the Netherlands. One of these remains are carbonized wheat grains, which are used in this thesis to answer the question: “Will the archeological remains in the subsurface survive a loading caused by newly build infrastructure or buildings or will they be destroyed?”. In order to give an answer to this question 3 types of tests were conducted: strength tests on individual particles, oedometer tests and shearbox tests on mixtures of seeds and clay. The strength test results indicate that the strength and behavior of individual grains vary depending on the carbonization temperature. Grains that are weak and brittle like the Archeon grains heated up to 270° C are most preferable when studying the vulnerability of carbonized seeds incorporated to clay and loaded mechanically in the oedometer or shear box. A CT-scan of an oedometer sample showed that sample preparation needs to be enhanced because of air inside the sample at the interface between the clay layers where the seeds were deposited. A Ct-scan of the shearbox tests showed that the seeds are shifted in the consolidated clay when sheared. An answer to the main question isn’t found and more testing needs to be done with the oedometer and shearbox. It is expected that when the sample is sheared over larger distances the seeds are shifted more and weaker seeds are broken, this and whether our own produced grains are representable to the grains in the subsurface must be checked.

wheat
carbonized

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c8e2e0d3-29b0-4ffd-9a0f-38cd21286226

Student theses

bachelor thesis

(c) 2011 Van der Putte, E.A.V.