Artificially synthesized transparent soil materials combined with particle image processing technology have been widely used in model tests. However, to use this technology to study pile foundation scour problems, more research on its characteristics is needed. Based on the transparent sand prepared by the mixture of fused silica sand, twelve alkane and 15# white mineral oil, the basic physical properties, angle of repose and starting velocity of the transparent sand were studied through laboratory experiments. The results show that the transparency of the transparent sand is not much different except for the 1~2 mm particle size group which is significantly worse; the bulk density of transparent sand in each particle size group has very small difference; the bulk density of transparent sand in each particle size group has very small difference; dry bulk density increases first and then decreases with the increase of particle size; the pore liquid shear rate and shear stress show a good linear relationship, which is a typical Newtonian fluid; the submerged angle of repose increases with the increase of the median diameter, and is compared with the natural angle of repose; the initiation velocity of transparent sand with a particle size group of 0.1~0.2 mm increases with the increase of liquid depth, and fitting by Shamov's formula, the anastomosis effect is better.