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Equipment
Atterberg limits apparatus with cutting watch glasses
tool paper towels
numbered soil moisture cans desiccator with lid
wash bottle drying oven 105 oC
metal spatula computer and spreadsheet software
no. 40 sieve weighing balance
mixing bowls
Safety
Follow standard laboratory safety practices. Wear eye protection in the laboratory at
all times. Wear rubber gloves when mixing soil, making soil worms, making standards,
diluting samples and working around concentrated hazardous elemental standards and
reagents. Read the labels on all equipment, standards and reagents before using them.
Reagents
Triple-distilled water (TDW) or double-distilled water (DW) - Each laboratory usually has
water purification systems that produce DW or TDW. Check with lab supervisor on correct
DW or TDW system operation. Use water directly from systems.
Comments
Some soils may be too sandy to perform this test. These are considered non-plastic.
The liquid limit apparatus should be calibrated occasionally. The drop of the brass cup
should be 1 cm. Place the square end of the cutting tool under the portion of the cup which hits the
rubber base. Turn on the instrument. At each blow there should be only a small click as the brass cup
hits the base of the cutting tool. The adjustment is made by loosening the center thumb screw on the
top of the instrument and pushing the plate attached to the brass bowl forward or back. There is a
large thumb screw behind the plate which should be tightened up snug against the back of the plate.
Use a porcelain plate to roll soils for plastic limit, if a hard surface counter top is not
available.
Some procedures for Atterberg limits require the soils to be sieved with a number 40 sieve.
This takes out the very coarse, coarse and some medium sands. Check the state ASTM requirement
for engineering properties to see if this step should be followed.
Brass bowl
Cutting tool
5. Oven-dry can + soil in an oven at 105 oC overnight. Cool in a desiccator and weigh oven-
dried soil + can and record. Remove soil from can, clean, and weigh the can if there was not
a tare for the can before adding the moist soil.
6. Determine the moisture content of the soil and plot versus number of blows on calculation
sheet. Samples should be run in triplicate with varying moisture contents. To decrease the
moisture content of the soil and increase the number of blows, mix the soil with the metal
spatula and blot with paper towels. To increase the moisture and decrease the number of
blows, add small amounts of TDW and work in thoroughly. If additional water is added, the
sample should sit for hour before another determination is made.
7. The three points should form a straight line when plotted on semi-logarithmic paper. The %
water content at 25 blows is the liquid limit (LL). Use the worksheet provided to plot
numbers and obtain the % water content at 25 blows. Alternatively, EXCEL (or similar)
software can be used to plot the % moisture on the Y axis and the number of blows on the X
axis and display a logarithmic trendline equation. Check the boxes for displaying the
equation on the chart and display R-squared value on the chart. In EXCEL plug numbers into
the equation to get the % water at 25 blows.
References
American Society for Testing and Materials. 2004. Standard tests for liquid limit, plastic limit, and
plasticity index for soils. D 4318. Annual book of ASTM standards. Construction. Section 4.
Soil and rock; dimension stone; geosynthesis. Vol. 04.08. ASTM, Philadelphia, PA.
Black, C. A. (ed.) 1965. Methods of Soil Analysis. American Society of Agronomy (ASA),
Monograph 9, Part 1, Madison, WI, p. 391.
Calculations
BH6 41
12 39.47 16 38.41
18 38.62 22 37.81
30 37.81 37 36.85
25 38.19 25 37.69
40.0
39.5
39.0 y = -1.802ln(x) + 43.905
R = 0.9936
38.5
38.0
BH6
% H20
37.5
41
37.0
y = -1.859ln(x) + 43.563
36.5 R = 1
36.0
35.5
35.0
10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Number of Blows