ASSIGNMENT

OF
FOUNDARY TECHNOLOGY
ON
SWELLING OF CLAY

SUBMITTED TO:- SUBMITTED BY:-

Mr. RAJINDER KUMAR KARAMJOT SINGH
(Assistant prof. in ME) [Link](R) ,2ND SEM(ME)
21215007
WHAT IS CLAY
Clay is defined by the American Foundrymen’s Society
(A.F.S.), as those particles of sand (under 20 microns in
diameter) that fail to settle at a rate of 25 mm per
minute, when suspended in the water.
Clay consists of two ingredients:
 Fine slit
 True clay
Fine slit is a sort of foreign matter of mineral deposit
and has no bonding power.
True clay supplies the necessary bond. Under high
magnification, true clay is found to be made up of
extremely minute aggregates of crystalline particles,
called clay minerals. These clay minerals are further
composed of flake-shaped particles, about 2 micron in
diameter, which are seen to lie flat on one another.
SWELLING OF CLAY
The phenomenon of clay swelling is associated with the
hydration of clay.
A type of damage in which formation permeability is
reduced because of the alteration of clay equilibrium. Clay
swelling occurs when water-base filtrates from drilling,
completion, workover or stimulation fluids enter the
formation. Clay swelling can be caused by ion exchange or
changes in salinity. However, only clays that are directly
contacted by the fluid moving in the rock will react; these
include authigenic clays, some detrital clays on
the pore boundaries and unprotected clay cement. The
nature of the reaction depends on the structure of the clays
and their chemical state at the moment of contact. The most
common swelling clays are smectite and smectite mixtures
that create an almost impermeable barrier for fluid
flow when they are located in the larger pores of
a reservoir rock. In some cases, brines such
as potassium chloride [KCl] are used in completion or work
over operations to avoid clay swelling.
Mechanism of Clay Swelling
The present algorithms provide a method to predict the
stable states of swelling clays. However, ideally one would
want to control the clay swelling in many engineered
settings. Therefore, it is essential to understand the
microscopic mechanisms underlying clay swelling. Such
details are not easily amenable to experimental observation.
Realizing that during our simulations transitions between the
stable states occurred, we aimed to obtain exactly this kind
of information. To this end, a simulation was performed,
which started at the stable state corresponding to p/p0 ) 0.3,
i.e., the one-layer hydrate. When the equilibrium state was
reached, the water pressure was increased to p/p0 ) 0.8,
corresponding to the two-layer hydrate.
The water and sodium density profiles during swelling are
condensed in Figure 3.
In the starting configuration, the one-layer hydrate is clearly
visible with sodium ions forming inner-sphere surface
complexes. 4 In this regime, the H2O/Na+ ratio is between 3
and 4. The water molecules are positioned in the center of
the interlayer. The water oxygen coordinates to a sodium
counterion, while the water hydrogen atoms hydrogen-bond
to the clay surface oxygen atoms. With increasing water
vapour pressure the clay swells but the inner-sphere
complexes are preserved, their distance to the clay mineral
surface remaining almost constant. Concomitantly, this
forces the water molecules to form two layers. The increase
in layer spacing results in less
confinement of the water molecules allowing them to orient
themselves to the sodium counterions. This is derived from
the change in the angle between the water dipole and the
clay mineral surface normal vector (Figure 3). Such a result
can be interpreted as an increased orientation to the
counterions and a decreased influence of hydrogen bonding
to the clay mineral surface. It turns out that the water
molecules close to one clay surface coordinate to sodium
ions that are closest to the opposite one. The key
phenomenon in the transition occurs at a layer spacing close
to 13.50 Å: part of the inner-sphere sodium ions move to the
central plane of the interlayer. The driving force for this
counterion flux is the energy associated with full hydration of
these counterion.h

e hydration of cl
Figure 3. Evolution of the water and counterion distribution
in the clay interlayer during the swelling transition. The
graphs indicate the oxygen
(upper left), hydrogen (upper right), and sodium (lower left)
density as a function of the layer spacing (in bins of 0.25 Å).
The integrated density at a given layer spacing is unity (color
scheme: black-red-yellow-white from lowest to highest
density). The splitting of the single water peak is observed at
d ) 12.5 Å, while the counterion flux to the central plane
starts at approximately 13.5 Å. The lower right figure
schematically shows the location and orientation of one
counterion that remains close to the right clay mineral
surface and coordinates to a water molecule closer to the
opposite surface. The water molecule is subsequently
reoriented, finally resulting in the transfer of the sodium ion
from the inner-sphere position to the center of the
interlayer. Note that only the position perpendicular to the
clay surface is indicated; the clay mineral surface is also
indicated.y

TYPES OF CLAY
The most popular clay type used are:
 KAOLINITE or FIRE CLAY
 BENTONITE
Kalonite has a melting point of 1750 to 1787 °C and
Bentonite has melting temp. range of 1250 to1300 °C. of the
two, bentonite can absorbed more water which increases its
bonding power. The clays besides these basic constituents,
may also contain some mixture of lime, alkalies and other
oxide which tend to reduce their refractoriness.
There are basically two types of bentonite one With sodium
as absorbed ion which is often called western bentonite and
the other with calcium ion called southern bentonite. Sodium
bentonite produce better swelling properties- vol. increases
some 10-20 times, high dry strength which lower the risk of
erosion, better tolerance of variations in water content, low
green strength and high resistance to burn out, which
reduses the clay consumption. In contrast the calcium
bentonite have low dry strength but higher green strength. It
is possible to improve the properties of calcium bentonites
by treating it chemically with soda ash.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT SWELLING OF

CLAYS
Volume changes in clay, because of variations in moisture
content,Swelling potential, as used here, refers to the
amount of volume increase due to swelling that is possible in
a clay body in its natural environment. It is influenced by
many factors, some of which are indigenous to the clay body
and others that are related to its environment. Inherent
factors determine the maximum increase in volume that can
take place under optimum conditions. They include clay
mineral composition, amount of nonclay material present,
density, void ratio, size and orientation of clay particles,
cementation, macrostructure, size and thickness of the clay
body, and depth below ground surface.
The most significant of the swelling factors is clay-mineral
composition. Most naturally occurring clays are composed of
two or more clay minerals plus fine nonclay particles. The
swelling potential and pressures generated by the swelling of
a particular clay body are, to a large degree, functions of the
combined inherent swelling capacities of all of its clay-
mineral components. The presence of silt, sand, and other
nonclay materials will reduce the swelling potential in
proportion to their amount. The nonclay materials are
dilutants that in effect reduce the clay-mineral content per
unit volume and hence reduce swelling potential. A key to
the amount of clay is generally provided by dry-density and
void ratio. Clays with high dry densities and low void ratios
usually contain greater proportions of clay minerals than do
those with low dry densities and high void ratios. Other
factors being equal, clays with high dry densities commonly
have higher swelling potentials than do those with low dry
densities.
Clay particle size (size of an individual clay crystal)
determines, to a large degree, the total surface area
accessible to moisture within a mass of clay . The total
surface area increases as the particle size decreases. The
orientation of the particles, most of which are thin sheet-like
crystals, affects their access to moisture; the surface area
accessible to moisture increases as degree of preferred
orientation decreases. Hence, swelling potential increases
with decrease both in particle size and in degree of preferred
orientation. Some clays composed of fine-grained, randomly
oriented, nonexpandable clay minerals have swelling
potentials as great as those clays composed of expandable
clay minerals. Such a clay occurs in the Decorah Formation
(Ordovician) of southeastern Minnesota. The swelling of
parts of the Decorah Formation consisting primarily of
randomly oriented, fine-grained particles of illite is largely
due to capillary pressures.
Clays that are cemented, usually with carbonate, silica, or
iron oxide, have little or no swelling potential, because the
clay particles are bonded by the cement and have low
porosity. For reasons not fully explained, macrostructures
produced by roots, microbial activity, and soil-forming
processes may reduce swelling potential.
Maximum volume change for a clay body is directly
proportional to the size of the body; however, even thick clay
bodies composed of highly expandable clay minerals will
have no swelling potential if the weight of the overburden is
sufficient to counter swelling pressures. The stability of clays
at the site of an engineered structure may be affected by
chemical or organic waste that comes in contact with the
clay. The exchangeable ion chemistry of swelling clay
minerals may be changed, which, in turn, may alter the
water-retention capacity of the clay and adversely affect its
volume and strength. This also may occur where concrete
construction contacts a clayey foundation, because of an
increase in the calcium ion concentration. Research is needed
on the possible effects of deleterious ground water and
chemical wastes on high-quality stable rock used in fills or
foundations overlying weak clays.
Time is important in determining the amount of swelling that
may take place in response to local changes in the
environment and moisture conditions of a clay body. Swelling
clays have low permeabilities and, when wetted, the clay
minerals expand and further reduce permeabilities.