Abstract:

Sole materials can provide trace evidence in forensic science. In this paper, we examined 30 sole samples by using a hand?held X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF) to obtain information about the content of elements in the inorganic fillers of soles. The samples were classified into five categories by the Biplot, which showed the differences in the inorganic filler content of each sample. The feature information of each sample in the variable was explored. The hierarchical cluster was used to verify the classification results. The results indicated that this method had an ideal effectiveness for the classification of XRF data. XRF and Biplot can be used to examine and classify sole materials from the perspective of inorganic fillers. The Biplot method has a great potential application for analysis of XRF experimental data.

Key words: sole filler, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, biplot, hierarchical cluster