Soil testing is one the basic criteria to access and extract basic information about a construction site and how to proceed with the project in hand.
There are various kind of tests being performed to evaluate thr quality of soil for building construction. These test are performed both in laboratory and field. In this blog we are going to mention and discuss about the importance of a few soil tests for building construction.
Specific gravity of soil
Dry density of soil
Moisture content test
Atterberg limits tests
Compaction test (Proctor’s test)
It is the ratio of the unit weight of soil solids to that of the water. Specific gravity is determined by many methods and they are.
Measuring flask method
Gas jar method
Shrinkage limit method
Density bottle method
Dry Density Test on Soil
Dry density of soil depends upon void ratio and specific gravity of soil. The weight of soil particles in a given volume of sample is termed as dry density of soil. Based on values of dry density soil is classified into dense, medium dense and loose categories.
Moisture content or water content in soil can be determined by several methods and it is a very important parameter for building construction. Oven drying method
Sand bath method
Torsion balance method
Calcium carbide method
Of all the above mentioned tests the most accurate and most commonly used one is oven drying method.
Atterberg Limits Test on Soil
, Atterberg provided 3 limits which exhibits the properties of fine grained soil at different conditions to measure the critical water content of a fine grained soil. The limits are liquid limit, plastic limit and shrinkage limit. These limits are calculated by individual tests
Proctor’s test determines the compaction characteristics of soil. Compaction of soil is the reducing air voids in the soil by densification. The degree of Compaction is measured in terms of dry density of soil.