2. A Beginner’s Guide to Soil Classification
Why classify soils? Before building anything—from highways to homes—it’s crucial to understand the soil beneath. Soil classification helps engineers predict how a soil will behave under loads, in wet conditions, or during excavation. SOIL CLASSIFICATION: · Sorting the soil into groups and sub-groups which would show similar behaviour and common engineering properties. · Done on the basis of simple index properties. Most commonly used properties are Grain Size Distribution and Plasticity (discussed in previous article). · In any soil mass, the sizes of the grains vary greatly. To classify a soil properly, you must know its grain-size distribution. The grain-size distribution of coarse-grained soil is generally determined by means of sieve analysis. For a fine-grained soil, the grain-size distribution can be obta...