Soil formation

Mainly due to physical and chemical

weathering of rock
Physical weathering causes reduction of size
without changes of the composition
* agent- erosion, freezing, unloading
Chemical weathering causes reduction in size
and altered the composition of rock
*agent- hydration, carbonation, oxidation
Weathering process
 Soil type
Due to movement of glaciers.
The glaciers advanced and retreated with
time.
During their advanced , the glaciers carried
large amounts of sand, silt, clay, gravel and
boulders.
Glacial soil

Marine soil
 Soil type

The formation of soil due to the wind blow.

consisting of uniform silt and silt-sized
particles.

Aeolian soil

Alluvial soil deposits derive from the

action of streams and rivers
can be divided into:
(1) braided stream deposit wide range of
grain size from gravel to silt. Clay size particles
are not found.
(2) Meandering belt of stream consist of
Alluvial soil sand, silt sized and clay.
 Soil type
Residual soils are found in areas where the
rate of weathering is more than the rate of
weathered materials are carried away by
transporting agents.

Residual soil deposits are common in the

Tropics. The nature of a residual soil deposit
will generally depend on the parent rock.

Residual soil
 SOIL PARTICLES SIZE AND SHAPE

Shape of soil particle

Gravel Sand Silt Clay

Coarse soil
Fine soil
visible to the naked eye
determined by means
of an electron microscope.

Rounded Irregular Angular

Flaky Elongated Flaky & Scanning Electron

Elongated
Microscope (SEM)
 Particles Size Distribution

Soil Type Method

Coarse grained Sieve analysis
Fine grained Sedimentation analysis
-Hydrometer analysis
-Pipette analysis
 Particles Size Distribution

Sieve analysis
Particles Size Distribution

Standard Sieve size

 Particles Size Distribution

Sedimentation analysis
If a soil contains appreciable quantities of fine fractions hydrometer
analysis is done.

It is very useful to determine the percentage of clay (<0.002 mm)- more

than 10%

Hydrometer analysis
 Particles Size Distribution

Sedimentation or hydrometer tests (for grain sizes <#200 sieve)

based on Stoke.s law:

Hydrometer No. 769333 Particle density, Gs 2.63

Test Temperature 26oC Viscosity of water, ? 0.8724
Meniscus correction 0.5 Initial dry mass of soil 91.979 g
Reading in dispersant solution, R0' -1.500

Date Elapsed Hydometer True Effective Modified Particle Percentage

Time time reading reading depth reading diameter Finer than D
t Rh' Rh HR Rd K
minutes mm m %
9.12 0
0.5 9.50 10.00 158.25 11.00 59.000 19.296
9.13 1 9.00 9.50 160.16 10.50 51.208 18.419
9.14 2 8.00 8.50 163.98 9.50 36.639 16.665
9.16 4 7.50 8.00 165.89 9.00 26.058 15.788
9.20 8 6.50 7.00 169.71 8.00 18.637 14.034
9.27 15 5.50 6.00 173.53 7.00 13.763 12.279
9.42 30 4.00 4.50 179.26 5.50 9.891 9.648
10.12 60 3.00 3.50 183.09 4.50 7.068 7.894
11.12 120 2.00 2.50 186.91 3.50 5.050 6.140
1.12 240 1.50 2.00 188.82 3.00 3.589 5.263
4.42 450 0.50 1.00 192.64 2.00 2.647 3.508
1420 0.00 0.50 194.55 1.50 1.498 2.631
Particles Size Distribution
 Particles Size Distribution

Particle size for various classification system

 Particles Size Distribution

Sieve test
Sieve analysis consists of shaking the soil sample through a set of sieve that
have progressively smaller opening

After the soil is shaken, the mass of soil retained on each sieve is determined.
 Particles Size Distribution
Sieve test
Once the percent finer for each sieve is calculated as in step 5, the
calculation are plotted on semilogarithmic graph paper with percent finer as
ordinate (arithmetic scale) and sieve opening as absicca (logarithmic scale).
PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION
BRINCHANG BH13 (6.0-7.0 m)

100
90
PERCENTAGE PASSING (%)

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100
SIEVE SIZES (mm)
 Particles Size Distribution
Sieve analysis example

Sieve mesh Percentage

size (mm) Mass Percentage
finer
retained (g) retained
(passing)
14.0 0 0 100.0
10.0 3.5 1.2 98.8
6.3 7.6 2.6 96.2
5.0 7.0 2.4 93.8
3.35 14.3 4.9 88.9
2.0 21.1 7.2 81.7
1.18 56.7 19.4 62.3
0.600 73.4 25.1 37.2
0.425 22.2 7.6 29.6
0.300 26.9 9.2 20.4
0.212 18.4 6.3 14.1
0.150 15.2 5.2 8.9
0.063 17.5 6.0 2.9
Pan 8.5 2.9
TOTAL 292.3 100.0
 Particles Size Distribution
Sieve analysis example

The soil comprises:

18% gravel,
45% coarse sand,
24% medium sand,
10% fine sand,
3% silt, and is classified therefore as: a well-graded Gravelly
Sand
 Analysis of Particle-size Distribution

A - a poorly-graded medium SAND (probably estuarine or flood-plain alluvium)

B - a well-graded GRAVEL-SAND (i.e. equal amounts of gravel and sand)
C - a gap-graded COBBLES-SAND
D - a sandy SILT (perhaps a deltaic or estuarine silt)
E - a typical silty CLAY (e.g. London clay, Oxford clay)

Poorly graded most of the soil grains are the same size
Well graded Particle size distributed over a wide range
Gap graded contains various particle size, but the gradation continuity is broken by the
absence of some particle sizes
 Analysis of Particle-size Distribution

Effective size
d10
Uniformity coefficient
Cu = d60 / d10
Coefficient of gradation
Cc = d30 / (d60 x d10 )

Cu > 5 indicates a well-graded soil

Cu < 3 indicates a uniform soil
Cc between 0.5 and 2.0 indicates a well-graded soil
Cc < 0.1 indicates a possible gap-graded soil
Example of Particle-size analysis
 Example of Particle-size analysis

Solution
 Example of Particle-size analysis

Solution
Example 2 of Particle-size analysis
 Example 2 of Particle-size analysis

Solution
 Example 2 of Particle-size analysis

Solution

MIT System

USDA System

AASHTO
System
Example 3 of Particle-size analysis
Example 3 of Particle-size analysis
 Classification of cohesive soil
The engineering properties of fine grained soils depend largely on their moisture
content.
The fine grained soils can behave as solid, semi solid, plastic and liquid
depending on the amount of water
The transformation during the drying process occurs in three stages and known
as Atterberg limits:
1. Liquid limit (LL)
2. Plastic limit (PL)
3. Shrinkage Limit (SL) P

SL PL LL
 Atterberg Limit

Liquid Limit (LL)

Moisture content passes from a plastic to a liquid state

If the natural moisture content is near to its LL, then it is susceptible
to large deformation and shear failure when loaded.

Soil type LL
Sandy Loam 15% - 20%
Silty soil 20% - 50%
Clay 40% - 80%
SL PL LL
 Atterberg Limit

Test to find Liquid Limit (LL)

Casagrande method Cone penetration

test
 Atterberg Limit
Test to find Liquid Limit (LL) Casagrande method

Liquid limit device

Soil pat before Soil pat after

test test

Grooving tool
 Atterberg Limit
Procedure to find Liquid Limit (LL) using Casagrande method
(BS1377:-4:1990)
 Atterberg Limit
Determination of liquid limit from the graph

The moisture content corresponding to 25 drops (blows) represents

liquid limit
 Atterberg Limit
Procedure to find Liquid Limit (LL) using Casagrande method
(BS1377:-4:1990) - VIDEO
 Atterberg Limit
Test to find Liquid Limit (LL) Cone penetration method
 Atterberg Limit
Analysis to find Liquid Limit Cone penetration method
(LL)

The moisture content corresponding

to 20 mm penetration for 5 second
 Atterberg Limit

Plastic Limit (PL)

The ability of soil to change their shape without break or crack.

The value of plastic limit is determine by rolling the soil by hand and
break or crack at 3mm in diameter.

Soil type PL
Sandy Loam 17% - 20%
Silty soil 20% - 25%
Clay 25% - 35%
SL PL LL
 Atterberg Limit

Test to find Plastic Limit (PL)

3mm
 Atterberg Limit

Test to find Plastic Limit (PL)- Video

 Atterberg Limit

Shrinkage limit (SL)

As fine grained soil loses water it shrinks, and its volume decreases.
The moisture content at the volume change of the soil mass ceases is
defined as shrinkage limit.
Application of shrinkage limit:
1. Root of trees can extract large amount of water from clays supporting the
foundation of building may induce large settlement to damage the structure
2. Climatic conditions, such as droughts could dry the clay below footing. The
effect of shrinkage usually extend to 1 m.
3. Road and pavement surfaces become undulating because of differential
volume changes
4. Pipelines, laid in the shrinkage zone could deform and split apart.
 Atterberg Limit

Analysis of shrinkage limit (SL)

- Mass in gram (g)

- Volume in cm3
- w in g/cm3
 Atterberg Limit

Linear Shrinkage (LS)

 Activity
The proportion of clay mineral (< 2 m size) in a fine soil
affects its current state, particularly its tendency to swell
and shrink with changes in water content.
The degree of plasticity related to the clay content is
called the activity of the soil.

Activity = PI / (% clay particles)

 Consistency indices
Three consistency indices
PI (%) = LL - PL
1. Plasticity index (PI)

LL - w
2. Relative consistency index (RI) RI (%) = 100
PI

3. Liquidity index (LI) w - PL

LI (%) = 100
PI
 Soil Classification

Classification systems provide a common language to express

concisely the general characteristic of soil.

The grain size distribution and plasticity of soils are commonly

used to classify the soil

There are some system in soil classification of soil such as

(i) The Unified Soil Classification (USC) System

(ii) AASHTO Classification System

(iii)British Soil Classification System (BSCS)

 Soil Classification (USCS)

(0.075 mm)
USCS
For Gravelly and sandy soil
For Inorganic silty and clayey soil
For organic
silty and
clayey soil
AASHTO System

No. 10 = 2.0 mm
No. 40 = 0.425 mm
No. 200 = 0.075 mm

How to classify?
1.Determine the
percentage passing
sieve no.200

2.Start from left to right

AASHTO System
AASHTO flow chart (Coduto et al. , 2011)
 Group Index (GI)
To evaluate the quality of a soil as a highway subgrade
material.
The smaller the value of the GI, the better the soil as a
highway material
GI=(F-35)[0.2+0.005(LL- 40)] + 0.01(F -15)(PI 10),
where F is percent passing 0.075 mm
GI = 0.01(F -15)(PI 10) for A-2-6 and A-2-7

Rules
1.If GI is negative, taken as 0
2.Rounded the GI to the nearest number
Example 1
Example 2
BSCS (Coarse soil)
BSCS (Fine soils)
Problems