Fundamentals of Soil Mechanics for Sedimentary and Residual Soils (Wesley/Fundamentals Soil Mechanics) || Basic Index Tests, Soil Classification and Description

✍ Scribed by Wesley, Laurence D.

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 368 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 0470376260
• DOI: 10.1002/9780470549056.ch3

✦ Synopsis

The properties of soils measured in soil mechanics can be divided into two broad groups. First, there are properties that give a general picture of the soil and its expected characteristics but which are not used directly in analytical design procedures. Most of the properties described in Chapter 2 and listed in Table 2.1 belong in this group. They are valuable in providing an indication of likely engineering properties of the soil. Second, there are properties that are used directly for design purposes. These are primarily parameters governing the strength, compressibility, and permeability of the soil. In this chapter, further properties belonging to the first group are described. As we shall see later, some of these properties can be related to design parameters by means of empirical correlations.

For engineering purposes soils are divided into two main categories with two subgroups in each category, as shown in Figure 3.1. Coarse-grained soils consist of gravel and/or sand and are commonly referred to also as granular materials or noncohesive soils. Fine-grained soils consist of silt and/or clay and are often referred to also as cohesive soils.

3.1.1 Gravel and Sand

These consist of rock fragments of various sizes and shapes. Gravel particles usually consist of rock fragments but may occasionally consist of single minerals. Sand particles normally consist of single minerals, frequently quartz. In some cases there may be only one size of particle present,