Packing of multi-sized mixtures of wet coarse spheres

The effect of water addition on the packing of multi-sized coarse spheres has been experimentally investigated under standard poured packing conditions. The results indicate that porosity is strongly affected by particle characteristics such as particle sizes and their distribution, in addition to water content. The packing features in the relationship between porosity and moisture content for wet multi-sized spheres are found to be similar to those for wet mono-sized spheres, implying that the same governing mechanisms apply. The comparison between the dry and wet packing systems confirms that there is a similarity between them, suggesting that the packing of wet particles can be predicted within the framework of a packing model developed for dry coarse particles. Future work in this direction is also discussed.