SEPT os “a DITION i c = I ULiw. Pe eek ee 7 § ve Mi cs ad .. i ed gey 0A? 4 EDS = : 7 ' ' » THIRD EDITION Joseph E. Bowles Consulting Engineer/Software Consultant Engineering Computer Software McGraw-Hill Book Company New York St. Louis San Francesco Auckland Bogota Hamburg Johannesburg Lemon Madrid New Deth) Panama Pans Sade Paulo Singapore Sydney Tokyo Toronto Mexico Montreala TIONAL STUDENT EDITION Copyright © 1986 i Exclusive rights by McGraw-Hill Book Co. — Singapore for manufacture amd export. This book cannot be re-exported from the country #0 which it is consigned by McGraw-Hill. Ist Printing 1986. Copyright © 1986, 1978, 1970 by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Adl rights reserved. No part of this publication may be > . reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, . B a } photocopying, recording, Or otherwise, without the ; dor written permission of the publisher. | This book was set in Century Expanded by Better Graphics. é The editor was Kiran Verma. . The cover was designed by Carla Bauer. The production supervisor was Leroy A. Young. Project supervision was done bygthe Total Book. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bowles, Joseph E- Engineering preperties of soils. Includes bibliographies. — | 1. Soil mechanics—Laboratory manuals. 2. Soils Testing —Laboratory manuals. Il. Title. TA710.5.B67 1986 620.1°91 85-10966 ISBN 0-07-006754-6 - -_ f e, - When ordering this title use ISBN 0-07-Y66451-X. ' a ' mde ‘ s a i 25% < vi . - il es : ; a coe * f éExperiment No. 1 Experiment No. 2 Experiment No. 3 Experiment No. 4 Experiment No. 5 Experiment No. 6 Experiment No: 7 Experiment No. 8 Experiment No. 9 Experiment No. 10 Experiment No. 11 Experiment No. 12 Experiment No. 13 Experiment No. 14 Experiment No. 15 Experiment No. 16 Experiment No. 17 Experiment No. 18 Experiment No. 19 Experiment No. 20 Experiment No. 21 Experiment No. 22 Fortran Computer Programs Data Sheets for Experiments tice INTRODUCTION: Soil Mechanics Definitions, Laboratory F and Report Preparation a 7 e: ‘ . * a ie | Water-Content Determination Field Collection of a Soil Sample Liquid and Plastic Limits of a Soil Shrinkage Limit Grain-Size Analysis— Mechanical Method Grain-Size Analysis—Hydrometer Method Specific Gravity of Soil Solids Classification of Soils Moisture-Unit Weight Relationships (C action Test) 1S es Determination of In-Place Soil Density *~ 85 i Coefficient of Permeability—Constant-Head Method 93 | Coefficient of Permeability—Falling-Head Method 101 Consolidation Test 107 Unconfined Compression Testing 129 Triaxial Test—Without Pore-Pressure Measurements 137 Triaxial Test—With Pore-Pressure Measurements — 157 Direct-Shear Test 169 Relative-Density Determination 179 California Bearing-Ratio (CBR) Test Flow-Net Construction Using an Electrical Analogy Volumetric—Gravimetric Relationships Unit Weight of Cohesive Soils S i | E ‘ - ere ior aie a Ses a - ee aa he: a ¥onp Olam rn 1 ey, Merete as at A ee PEE ih eg eA BM ok [Ae ee eee ee Vi oil ey caged eeThis third edition has been rewritten and updated as necessary conform as practical to the ASTM and AASHTO standards for soil testing. In the interes 7 laboratory time, which is 4 non-trivial consideration in both student and ercial < ® laboratories, I have revised some of the experiments so they are less time consuming than a et a | standard procedures are followed. In most cases there is no discernible differences in results. In no case has the modified procedure resulted in any loss of educational, or commercial, value of the test. Hh It has required some care to obtain a reasonable balance between a project being a learning experience without the user being overwhelmed with test details from strict adherence to the ASTM (or AASHTO) Standards. Data obtained from test methodology outlined here is as good as that from the standard tests—particularly since much of the correlation data (and classification methods) in the literature was obtained from soil testing essentially as outlined here. a I would suggest Experiment 21 as a first experiment or as"ga aboratory demonstration of volumetric-gravimetric relationships during the first or seconditiags meeting. The demon- stration should be held in the soils laboratory so that there is a Oe general introduction to equipment and procedures. a Only SI/metric units are used in this laboratory manual. ‘Ihe designation SI/metric is used because the commonly available equipment using grams and centimeters will be used well into the future. It is a trivial task to convert the necessary units to the foot-pound- second (Fps) system as required. I would suggest that fps equipment such as load rings and similar be “soft converted” in advance of use SO the test produces the expected SI load (forcé) units of Newtons (usually) or kiloNewtons. Dial gages and similar are readily available in mm units and their use should be encouraged. | As in the previous editions, this laboratory text has been written to introduce the basic essentials of the laboratory testing of soils, including methods of data collection, computations, and presentation of results. All of the illustrative data sheets contain actual soil test data obtained by me or under my supervision, using metric equipment and not merely conversion of units. I have included four computer programs in FORTRAN IV at the end of Exp. 22 for possible use in data reduction. The grain size program (Program A) illustrates that a computer program can be of questionable value, however, the other three programs can | : achieve some-to-considerable economy ‘n laboratory data reduction. It ts suggested that oa these programs be used as a checking tool for the undergraduate laboratory. If the progams are used as a primary means of student laboratory data reduction, sufficient sample computations should be required to verify that the user knows how to reduce data (and how the programs work). : FORTRAN is used since it is standardized and all of the users should have had a computer course with introduction to Fortran prior to this course. The output isin data sheet format which is easier to program 1 FORTRAN than in BASIC. ‘Sata“This section provides information of a gener 1 referenc article on soil mechanics d efinitions as well 7 included in this section are information on laboratory procedures use and a guide to the preparation of laboratory reports that the studer “The student should carefully read this section of the manual and refer to 1 ee correct report form and for methods of preparing graphs to present test informatio 1 that requires curve plotting. Sl/Metric Units Used in This Text No foot-pound-second (fps) la - labe _ tory equipment will measure in the standard SI unit of mass, the kilogram (kg), or in t smaller mass unit of grams (g). Weight as used by engineers is a force unit (but is hardly ever stated as such). We have the following considerations: » ee 0 W Pox = =~ ma a and if we substitute the standard gravitational acceleration g for the acceleration in the above equation we have F = W (where W is the body force or weight produced by the gravitational effect of the earth on the mass of the body under consideration). The standard gravitational acceleration (which varies slightly with location) is based on elevation of sea level at 45°N latitude and is very nearly 9.807 m/s2. The standard SI force unit is the newton (N), which is equal to 100,000 dynes. The newton is also the force that will accelerate a mass of 1 kg at arate of 1 m/s. One gram force = 980.7 dynes (also the acceleration of gravity in cm/s2), and thus we have: F = 1g (mass) x 980.7 cm/s? (units of force = dynes) If we divide by 980.7 dynes/g, it is clear that grams mass and grams force are interchange- able (also kilograms) as long as we deal with the standard gravitational constant. This has caused considerable confusion in the past, but it may become less of a problem in the future - since the newton (force) uses an acceleration of 1 m/s* (not the acceleration of gravity). For soils work we will use the following units (with standard abbreviations shown). Note that the intermediate units used will be consistent with the laboratory equipment, and the final data will be reported in SI units. See Quantity Nonstandard Intermediate Unit SI Unit . Length centimeter (cm) millimeter (mm), or meter (m) Volume cubic centimeter [cm’, cu cm, or ec meter® (m5) —also, milliliter (ml)] Mass gram (g) _ kilogram (kg) Weight g or kg newton (N) or kilonewton | (KN) | ‘aha Unit weight g/cm’; sometimes tonnes/m* kilonewton/m® (kN/m$) | : ae | (1 tonne = 1000 kg) 1 kN = 1000 N | : | eee ky/em? , N/mé [ work use boratory units are used in this text. Commonly, soils labora- ; : " he= eye A. a . vs am —_ ; — " . arr i. is d ” for mage tl ete hl eit? tote: (pe ee ee ee ( odsoert ~at bee ee a ot. Ts Ss] it = aes ’ avi? wt fits 5 * an =" : es rae yittaetg p . “r+” Mia Fundamental Definitions Referring to Fig. I-la, we have a volume of soil r assumed that the soil was removed in the form of a cube with le ngpery OF aaa (volume = 1 cm*). Actually it would be difficult to do this in practice, : rk ae u tS — volume-weight relationships that follow, we shall assume that “es no" hae oe volume as a perfect cube. This cube is made up of a soil skeleton with = o a ae eA interstices, or pores, between contact points of the soil particles 7 ig. a ae , evident that, depending on the location of the cube of soil in the field (in situ) and o factors, the quantity of water and air can V present to all the pores full of air and no water. Dependin e temperature, the water could be present as ice or as an ice-water mixtur te Water in pores lr Soil grains ety (b) Skeleton of soil grains forming pores partially filled with water. Ground (a) Cube of soil removed from ground. > « Tie, ae? ee i r Al , | fi ens —— os ys = for ‘ 4 aan dela i : ¥ - i 4 Pas es oecamel to fill the cube The porosity n is defined as _ must be the air volume V, present hs in ‘thes - iginal soil sl oe assumptions listed below will be made for convenience in a folk win zy materia 1. Soil has weight. 9 Air has no weight (for the volumes we shall be using). 3 Water has weight. Generally we shall take this as 1 g/cm? (9.807 kN/m?), although this value is correct only at a temperature of 4°C. At temperatures of 18 to 25°C, the seth ranges from 0.9986 to 0.9971 g/em® (see Table 6-1). The following symbols will be used in the definitions to follow: a e = void ratio ia G = specific gravity of any substance G, = specific gravity of the soil solids G,, = specific gravity of water n = porosity w = water content S = degree of saturation - V, = volume of air present in a soil mass V, = volume of soil solids in a soil mass V, = total volume of a soil mass = V, + V,, + V, V,, = volume of water in a soil mass V,, = volume of voids in a soil mass = V,. + V, W, = weight of dry soil solids W, = total weight of a soil mass including any water present W,,, = weight of water present in a soil mass + = unit weight of a material (g/em* or kN/m*) Yq = dry unit weight of soil Yeat = Saturated unit weight of soil Y, = unit weight of water Referring to Fig. I-1d, we define the void ratio e as sa y ae saaeil” anaclt .) ae 4s V, (I-1) . ee The void ratio is usually expressed as a decimal. TNc te Le o ‘ ; é oe re ms : | : ; - : , ; Detar Ler qegts! Be Ie: a ae V, eee | , Notice that the range of S is from 0 to 100 percen's if : ap h ® _ § = 0%, the soil is dry and if 'S = 100%, the soil is saturated The unit weight y of a soil is sae (1-5) S| ch as iron, copper, coal, and oil. If the This definition is also applicable to other substances SU pute the dry wnt weight Yq as soil is dry (S = 0%), note that W, = W,, and we com W, Ta V, If S = 100 percent, W, = W, + W,,, and using Eq. (1-5) we compute the saturated unit weight Ysat- If @ < S < 100percent, VW, is still computed as W, = W, + W,,,and Eq. (1-5) gives the wet unit weight of the soil. Generally one must look at the context of a given problem to see which unit weight is being described or is to be determined, since, as the preceding material indicates, mere than one unit weight value may be computed for a given soil depending on the value of weight used in the numerator of Eq. (1-5). From fundamental considerations, the volume of any material is 'Y 1.0 for water at usu:G,,e- Yd» Ysat» ® a ce ; = : _G,+e ae Ysa = >a ™ OF __e to we aie a _Other relationships can be derived, but they will be left as an exercise for the student. ae Example ; Given the following: = Weight of container + wet sand = 248.5 g A Weight of container + dry sand = 231.2 4 Weight of container = 63.7 MR Volume of container = 100 cm? 4 is ae lI rh B 7 | % Find: (1) w, percent; (2) dry unit weight; (3) wet unit weight; and (4) void ratio if G, ey SOLUTION cal Ww y _ 248.5 — 231.2 _ 17.3 i | } l w= w-* 100 = 531.2 — 63.7 x 100 = 1675 x 100 = 10.3% 2.°Y¢ = \ Ae i 1.675 g/em’ = 1.675 x 9.807 = 16.43 kN/ms —_ V, 100 | | ay 3 W 184.8 a ae ei Ywet CY, | 100 WOR ae pe Aa =W,+W.= W, + wW, (Grom step 1). Now w divide by Mee T ala i eee IE ee ee nies NS 4 ts -‘y i nm rm ts ro ' ly ae . a wae _ 1 ee a eee _ 5 i ’ = ; ‘ ad 7 5 ie ™ al i Me ch Th Pa ad A) vie a we ahd Grete eeonge le o re ee ae Fi 7 ’ . . L ee is, y a ete ae ides Sse ya Ly - pes aree ree . , hi ian “sit! “F es oe Laboratory equipment is expensive; this can be wg propery ppretia current copy of a supplier's price list. The aie inment Tay be damaged by careless indicated at various times throughout the term. Sr” Lest EFFOFS: Reales are especially handling, and damaged equipment may yield serious rn be maxed to other laboratory susceptible to damage. For this reascn, they are oeriple: Rear balances used primarily locations except under the instructor’s supervision. The : ghd af gach laboratory period. The for water-content determinations should be locked at thé ond an¥ Fis of weighings sh ould balances should be checked for zero reading before using; cn LG h ‘lates. Small quantities be taken on the same balance to avoid zero errors betwé ae te weighing ert@es CA be ¥€ry important. are used in certain tests, and in such tests welgning ©. 1B t8 ] 166. “nd the thermostats The drying ovens are preset to a temperature of I fell Sn ; od should not be Tisiehaal without instructor authorizatibH as it takes considerable poe ~ stabilize the oven temperature so that the thermostats can bé sét Bréberly. It is essen 5 soil mechanics work that this particular value of oven temperature be maintained. e dried samples will be removed from the ovens by the appt8 Fate persons no later than 24 after the samples have been placed in the oven. The inst ructOt Feserves the right to remove and diseard any samples left in the ovens longer than 24 Hi: This File allows the ovens to be turned off when they are not needed, as an energy-consef vatiah feasure. Each group will clean up and be responsible for its wWOFK aéa and equipment. Re- member that others also use the equipment and if the weiBht 8f & piece of equipment is needed and the item has to be washed and dried, valuable 14B6Fat8i# time will surely be lost. Laboratory Reports A laboratory report is required for al! projects unless ot HEFRASE stated by the instructor. om report will be in a folder (one report to a folder) on which the flowing information is shown: Name of student i. 2. Title of project 3. Course number and laboratory section 4. Laboratory group number 5. Date of project and date of report submission The report will be typewrit : A ; ten or neatly hand-lettered w+, 2 - consist of the following material in the Bal beene wai nilpsins pen and willy f your 8 are not very i iets 1 : or ata 2A arigus iteHHs 6f equipment may DE ws ale meee al ages es 7 i . 7" y ‘ql lle * : .. = —- A " - . . + 7 — aw = ie ns4. Conclusions— brief summ ry and paaneininiialirotnr rs ments can (or you think could) be made, th k (or nothing) out of the experime: ; this is n the report should be about one-half to one page long to be presented. Be sure to tabulate your test 1 not say you got a lot clusion.” This part of th the amount of information section of your report. . vi sais aa 6 Show any gis next, and follow these with your collected data, which will generally be furnished. If you use one of the computer programs, or your — on one of the data sheets . | our own computer program, to reduce your data, be sure to include the worksheet that was used for data collection. Do not recopy your data; get in the habit of taking neat (or at least reasonably neat) laboratory notes. The report is to contain original data; if it is recopied, list the group member(s) who took the origina! data. 6. Sample calculations—It is not necessary to show every calculation, but at least one typical calculation must be shown for each step required in the data reduction. For example, take the 2d and 10th lines of data that is to be reduced and show every step required to produce the data in the columns of the data sheet. Be sure to show the derivation of any equations you used in data reduction. This is also to be done where one of the computer programs (or your own) was used to reduce the data. 7. Where a computer program is used, the output sheet can be included in your report in lieu of using one of the data sheets from this manual. The report is to follow good technical report writing form, including the citing of any references used. Do not use the first person (I, me, we, our, etc.) in writing a technical report. Do not write such statements as “I found that...” or “My group found .. .”; instead use “It was found that... .” Use correct spelling—when in doubt, consult ‘the dictionary. Try to use good sentence construction, and do not change from past tense to present tense in the same sentence or paragraph. Many of these problems can be avoided by: 1. Writing the report and then reading it over a day or so later. A neatly marked-through word or two will be better received by the instructor than a report that sounds mndie- ulous. It will also indicate that you went over the report before submitting it. 2. Not writing in such a hurry that you tend to drop letters off the ends of words or spell a word as it sounds. 3. Thinking about what you are going to write and being brief. A few well-put-together sentences are far more impressive than a long, poorly written report that says nothing. 4. Obtaining (perhaps from the library) a text on technical report writing and consulting it for writing tips. You may use the word processing features of a computer to produce the report text. If you use a word processor that cannot reproduce equations, leave space and neatly enter them by hand or with a typewriter. A primary purpose of the report is to give the instructor an indication of what you learned from the project. Other major benefits are obtained from practice in report writing and presenting engineering data. While you are graded primarily on the project and the — presentation of the data (and not report writing), a poorly written report will generally result in a lower grade than a well-written report. a You may not yet fully appreciate the formality involved in the reports; however, you should realize that report writing is an essential part of the work of most engineers. al Further, if you are not involved in soil mechanics work until several years after graduation — you will have some refresher material ready at hand—old laboratory reports—which, if well i) We ran Oe at rn Not iy 7777 “eice that the lines do not go. / through the Plotted points | Ordinate? halite "a curve that is asymptoti | lt? Asm ees horizontal rather than vertical. ith the asymptote sap ' The values to be obtained from the plot of experimental dae deat al i oe be shown the graph. If these values are used to compute a constant (for example, t S- modulus), show both the computation and the constant on the graph. Laboratory Practice The procedures outlined in the following tests are reasonably standard. For example, distilled water is often specified for use in the ASTM! versions of the tests. This can be ‘omitted and ordinary tap water used for the tests (at the discretion of the instructor), yielding, in general, a negligible error. Methods of soil preparation and length of testing may be modified from the ASTM Standards in the interest of saving student time. A copy of the current ASTM Standards, section 4, volume 4.08 (ASTM publishes standards for materials testing and specifications in 15 volumes; all the soil tests that have been standardized to date are found in volume 4.08) will be available in the soils laboratory or library for the interested student. The soil tests outlined in the following pages of this manual list the eurrent ASTM and AASHTO? Standards designation (if there is one) for reference convenience. For example, the ASTM Standards designation for the test in Experiment No. 1 is D2216-XX, where D2216 identifies the test and XX is the year of adoption or readoption of the test Standardization. Soil is highly variable, and this variability cannot be controlled to any great extent by engineers, who must work with the material as they find it, although it may be possible to alter its structure or change its composition by mixing it with imported materials. Soil tests are made for the purpose of identifying (or classifying) the material, determining certain of the physical properties of the material, and establishing control criteria for the material. It is obviously impossible to test the entire soil mass of a project, so it becomes necessary to perform a few tests on small quantities of soil and extrapolate the results to the entire soil mass. For the tests to be valid for the soil mass, they must be on samples that are representative of the soil mass. Obtaining truly representative samples requires great care in sampling operations. Bags of samples from the field are collected by the field personnel to be representative. The smaller samples for individual tests should be representative of the bag of soil; thus picking out a few lumps from the top of the bag is very probably not going to yield a representative sample. Keep constantly in mind the fact that you are or will be, as a Soils engineer, estimating with tests on a few grams of material the soil performance of huge masses of a soil that may vary widely in particle composition. The electronic pocket calculator has made the slide rule obsolete for engineering computations and tends to introduce a fictitious precision to computed results. You should be aware of the data limitations when making computations. The only computations in this manual that justify using two decimal places (to the nearest 0.01) in the final answer are the Specific-gravity test (Experiment No. 7) and density tests (Experiments No. 9 and 10). All other work can hardly justify more than one decimal (to the nearest 0.1). Therefore, even when averaging two or more test results, round off and report the answer to the nearest at al aa eal (or to 0.01 for the three tests cited’ ‘American Society fur Testing and Materials, 1916 Race Street, Philadelphia, PA, | | 19103, ore a ‘ a e 5 hanariotion of State Highway and Transportation Officials, 444 N. Capit at Stree LN. W. a: ; 7 a ye Degse Ae be 3 I ie ee 7 i ! ——— , bi a he unit of tne dial gages, load Fines. vl tee if ' when lahoratories renew wornout equipme equipment may be used when you are tak ing data. y cr ipment so tical in the next few yea rs as that both types i |i _ -TPE pea | M St 6 (ASTM St s sec. 4, vol 4.08) Sampling and Testing, Part I]) Re .-. « a's 7) a \ f f Moisturé cans (tin and aluminum) Oven with accurate temperature control | General Discussion Water-content determination is a routine laboratory test: to determine the amount of water present in a quantity of soil in terms of its dry weight. As a definition, W.. 3 a | w= pw 100 percent | (1-1) ae 3 where W,, is the weight of water present in the soil mass and W, is the weight of soil solids. | One could define the water content as the ratio of the weight of water present to the total { weight (i.e., weight of water plus soil); however, this would give a quantity in the de- nominator of the fraction that would depend on the amount of water present: W W w+ wo Wy. saa This is not desirable since the water content would then be related to a varying quantity rather than a constant quantity. This is easily seen, as W,,, appears in both the numerator and the denominator of the fraction of Eq. (1-2). Procedure l. Weigh atin or aluminum cup, Including the cover. Be sure to identify the container and er,’ its lid. The moisture cups are available in several sizes, with the 50-mm diameter by 30-mm height and the 64-mm diameter by 40-mm height being rather popular. Refer to data sheet No. 1 for data organization. , 2. Place a representative sample of wet soil in the cup and determine the weight of wet soil ne + cup. If the weight is determined immediately, it is usually not necessary to place See _ _. the lid on the cup. If there is a delay of 3 to 5 min or more, put the lid on the cup to retain the moisture and place the cup under a damp paper towel to maintain the humidity in the Vicinity of the cup. Bie oe | After weighing the wet sample + cup, remove the lid—it is usual practice toplaceiton the bottom of the cup—and place the sample in the oven. th 4 When the sample has dried to a constant weight, obtain the weight of the eup + dry soi i wee «Be sure to use the same scales for all weighings. | Ree ight of dry soil + cup is the weight of water W,, that was pre ent in the ; ee Sr ehg ie late i i” ak ret gl r. watt am 100 percent | a | Beiteey sf > td 7s : | | , ,of 110 + 5°C to a cor a Le dried in the oven at a drying temper ee will continue to bee Ethene 's present to evaporate, the WEIRD” | welch - ~ weight; ie., as Jong as water 1S pres t ractical ty make severa wary APS be smaller with successive welg nel ra ca seainath what is usually done 1s to assur determine if a constant weight ae “ee : ee overnight ), the sample is at a consta that after an oven-drying period of | Experience indicates thi ; in routine laborator; ae ce i hs ; a = l ‘7 a ow ti. Re a weight state, and use that weight for the weight of dry soil + sa “se this method of sample drying is quite adequate for the srnall samp a oe is usual to remove the water-content samples from the oven and to weigh th " immediately (use a pair of tongs or asbestos glove as they are quite hot). If for some reason s is not feasible to weigh the dry samples immediately, put the lid on the cup as soon as it 1s” cool enough to handle, and/or place the can of dry soil in a desiccator So that the soil does not” absorb water from the laboratory atmosphere. | | ane To provide reasonably reliable water-content determinations, the following minimum wet-soil sample weights (representative samples) are recommended: Maximum size of soil particles Recommended. minimum Balance (95-100% passes the given sieve) sample weight, g * sensitivity ie é No. 40 (0.420 mm) 10 to 200 0.01 g No. 4 (4.75 mm) 300 to 500 0.1 g 12.5 mm 300 to 1000 a 50.0 mm — 1500 to 3000 1.0 g The oven temperature of 110°C is t | aoe 00 hot for certaj ani at nN organic taining appreciable amounts of gypsum or other dliherals nes soils, for soils tropical soils. These soils contain lo S, certain clay S, and some osel can be lost at this high a eh sely bound water of hydration, or molecular water. that notably the Atterberg limits of Experiment No. ¢ > change in the soil characteristies— | \ Suggests an oven temperature of 60°C for drying ea Laer and specific gravity 4 east | Se soils. aeFie*Tib 6G Sh; | eR ELLIEL gg TT -—s ; 1. Introducing the student to one method of obtaining disturbed soil samp] wi ce ae ee 2. Enabling the student to obtain an indication of the variation of natural soil moisture with ey 3. Collecting information to plot a simple soil profile 4. Obtaining a bag of soil for future laboratory testing. Equipment 50- or 76-mm hand auger (or small gasoline-powered continuous-flight auger) ‘Extension rods for the auger to obtain borings to a depth of at least 6 m 2 sample bags per group ; 12 moisture cans per group (obtain empty weights before going to field) BS. Wrenches to add on auger extension rods Pe. 30-m tape to locate borings | ay Procedure This Will Be a Group Project 1. Each group is to auger a hole at least 6 m deep. Use the enclosed data sheet No. 2, which is a composite of several used commercially. Take two moisture-content samp!es at each | m of boring depth or where visual soil- stratum or moisture changes occur. Place the lids en the moisture cans immediately on obtaining the samples to minimize the moisture less. Upon return to the laboratory, weigh the cans of moist soil, revove the lids, and place the samples in the oven for drying. Return to the laboratory the following day and weigh the dried soil and compute the water content. Average the two values of water content as the reported water “ae content at each elevation. Fill in as much of data sheet No. 2 as you can. ite 3. Collect two bags of clayey soil per group (or enough material to yield at least 10 kg of air- | dry soil). This will be taken back to the laboratory, labeled, and stored for later soil testing, except that 5 kg will be immediately placed in a large pan to air dry for use in the laboratory period for the next week. i) ae 4. For this laboratory report, each group will, on the day following the field work, place on _. the blackboard in the soil laboratory the profile and location of their boring. Each e student will use these data to plot a simple soil profile using a scale of 2 cm = 1m vertically and 2 em = 15 m horizontally ona sheet of 21.5 = 28cm graph paper. Usea ' a. 2 act ee time or poor weather, it is suggested that the instructor tai during goud weather and prior to classes, and store it fo < Se be : Ufthis experiment is not done due to lack of — ENLty of soil from a local construction site, : _—, 7 ein oe? of r aie tt 5 ae ak Cee le bl ih — 0 1. ai - aa "i om + ak ae a A i 2 lM ‘ y § ice 7 >, i ben he E =" nA “7 ba ris ‘a oo ¥ , . a= ey -" 7 om ; ; ‘ is , J 7 ba oe |, _ ‘ Pe a oa 4, 1a ke ae + = “ i ; = _ » Ba my i Pe We en Pe ase. af ee ee ee ee hy —— oa f= ee ee ee idNote that this ' lated from po 7 26 e am the boring data Symbols: Elev. = 29 [] Fill and topsoil {J Gray sand 28 Ya, Brown silty clay £24 Brown gravelly clay Light brown sand and gravel 6 24 (b) Water content with depth for boring No. 4. Figure 2-1 | Typical boring-log presentation. Note the plotting of the ground-surface profile. Some persons ( Experiment No. 2) use the ground surface as reference for plotting each boring. Exact details may vary somewhat from laboratory to abora - All dimensions shown are in meters. (a) Soil profile from boring information. (0) Water content versus depth for boring No. 4. if (img visual description of the soil in each stratum (e oe ‘ ai 4 _ &raveily sand). Each student Will also present on Sh caer . et rack topsoil, __ Paper a profile of the individual bor; 0% 23 om graph “ ae | ie aly én xD . ; Seis sir ’ % i Sal el Ai Ing with apl . if Re ey Fig. 2-1. A legend similar to thik chia Ps Water content with depth as shown — iis Teasmme: Mee Agta Ee water content data and a and’ graph sheets from those furnish ole! veport to be submitted for this ed in the back of this ‘can you draw any conclusions on pero (including all data sheets aiaae ANY recent rainfall has occurred? V*ation of water content with depth-} A SS] I PC and ’ . . = ied tien no. 254, pp. 159-226 (with n i +d ane Casagrande, A. (1932), Research on the Atterberg 1; : Fang, H. Y. (1960), Rapid Determination of Liquid Limit or Soils by Flow Index Method _ Highway Research Board Bulletin no. 254, pp. 30-35 (also contair: Nuyens, J. G. E., and R. F. Kockaerts (1967), Reliable Technic, Plastic Limit, Materials Research Standards, ASTM, vol. 7, no. 7, also December 1968, pp. 17-19). Lf Wroth, C. P., and D. M. Wood (1978), The Correlation of Index Properties with S ine Be i : i 9 Engineering Properties of Soils, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, May, _ pp. 137-145. Objective To introduce the student to the procedure for determining the liquid and plastie limits of a soll. : Equipment? Liquid-limit device with grooving tool (Fig. 3-1) or fall cone equipment (not shown) Moisture cans Plastic-limit plate (optional) Soil-mixing equipment (porcelain dish, spatula, plastic squeeze bottle to add controlled amount of water) | Balance sensitive to 0.01 g¢ Sieve, pan, and lid (US No. 40, BS No. 36, AFNOR No. 27, or DIN No. 400; see Table 5-1) Figure 3-1 Usual liquid- and plastic-limit test equipment. Shown are the fellowing- No. 40 sieve and pan; liquid-limit. machine with both the ASTM (formerly “Casagrande”) (left) and Weige grooving tools; plastic squeeze bottle for adding sontrulled amounts of mixing water; porcelain dish and for mixing svil; glass plate for plastic-limit test with iat mm welding rod for visual comparison of soil Use a stock lyboratory soil (or soil from rears No. 2)run through a 10-mm @ in) a 20-gal garbage can (or similar container). Ne hei ican ee enough supply should be available for a laboratory actos co ae tas. Se and 14. A small portion can be air-dried for several days prior xperiment N ¥ Ey ‘P oni mn a No. 6 and No. 7. a , ul a oa i nl ta a mf ; ; . east : Fk ol co ‘ oh yy ~ a ae Sa a 407 i i te ai. sar 1 a6 ety he Bee Mi ies eee