CE 353 Geotechnical Engineering

Dr M. Touahmia

2 The Origin of Soil and Grain Size

Lecture Outline:

1. Introduction
2. Rock Cycle and Rock Types
3. Weathering of Rocks
4. Origin of Soil
5. Mechanical Analysis of Soil

Textbook: Braja M. Das, "Principles of Geotechnical Engineering", 7th E. (Chapter 2).

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Introduction

What is a soil?
Soil is defined as the uncemented aggregate of mineral
grains and decayed organic matter with liquid and/or gas in
the pores between the grains:
(A) gas (mostly air);
(B) solid particles (minerals);
(C) liquid (water, contaminant liquid, etc.).

Where did soil come from?

Soils are formed by weathering of rocks. More specifically, the
mineral grains that form the solid phase of a soil aggregate are the
product of rock weathering.

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Rock Types and Rock Cycle

What is a rock?
In Geology rock is defined as the solid material forming the outer rocky shell
or crust of the earth. There are three major groups of rocks:

1. Igneous rocks: cooled from a molten state.

2. Sedimentary rocks: deposited from fluid
medium; e.g., products of weathering of other
rocks in water.
3. Metamorphic rocks: formed from pre-existing
rocks by the action of heat and pressure.
Apparently, the igneous rock is the one far
more essential and intrinsic since the other
two types are relative secondary in origin.

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Rock Types and Rock Cycle

Rock Cycle
The final products due
to weathering are soils

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Rock Types and Rock Cycle

Basic Mineralogy of Rocks

Rocks are formed with minerals. What is a mineral?
1. A naturally occurring chemical element or compound formed by inorganic
processes with an ordered arrangement or pattern for its atomscrystalline
structure;
2. Possesses a definite chemical composition or range of compositions.
3. The main types of minerals are: metallic minerals; nonmetallic minerals;
carbonate minerals; sulfate minerals; sulfide minerals; silicate minerals;
oxide minerals; clay minerals.

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Weathering of Rock

The formation of soil happens over a very long period of time (thousands of
years or more). In general, soils are formed by weathering of rocks. The
physical properties of soil are dictated primarily by the minerals that
constitute the soil particles and, hence, the rock from which it is derived.
Weathering is the process of breaking down rocks by mechanical and
chemical processes into smaller pieces to form soil or loose particles at or
near Earth's surface.
The weathering process occurs when rocks are exposed to the hydrosphere
(water) and atmosphere (air). These weathering agents can change the
physical and chemical characteristics of rocks.

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Weathering of Rock

Two types of weathering:

1. Mechanical/Physical Weathering: Physical
disintegration or degradation of rock into
smaller fragments without changing the
chemical composition of the rock.
Mechanical weathering processes include:

Frost action/ice wedging: is the breakup of rock caused by the freezing and
thawing (contracting and expansion) of water.
Abrasion: is the physical wearing down of rocks as they rub or bounce
against each other. This process is most common in windy areas, under
glaciers, or in stream channels.
Exfoliation: is the peeling away of large sheets of loosened materials at the
surface of a rock. Common in shale, slate, and mica.

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Weathering of Rock

2. Chemical Weathering: Process by which a rock is

broken down by chemical action resulting in a
change in the composition of a rock. The main
agents of chemical weathering are oxygen,
rainwater, carbon dioxide, and acids produced by
decaying plants and animals that leads to the
formation of soil.
Chemical weathering processes include:

Oxidation occurs when oxygen interacts chemically with minerals.

Hydration occurs when water interacts chemically with minerals.
Carbonation occurs when carbon dioxide interacts chemically with minerals.

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Transportation of Weathering Products

The products of weathering may stay in the same place or may be moved to
other places by ice, water, wind, and gravity.
Soils that remain at their places of formation are called residual soils and
soils that moved and deposited to other places are called transported soils.
An important characteristic of residual soils is the gradation of particle size.
Fine grained soil is found at the surface, and the grain size increases with
depth. At greater depths, angular rock fragments may also be found.
The transported soils may be classified into several groups, depending on
their mode of transportation and deposition:
1. Glacial soilsformed by transportation and deposition of glaciers
2. Alluvial soilstransported by running water and deposited along streams
3. Lacustrine soilsformed by deposition in quiet lakes
4. Marine soilsformed by deposition in the seas
5. Aeolian soilstransported and deposited by wind
6. Colluvial soilsformed by movement of soil from its original place by gravity (e.g. landslides)

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Soil-Particles Size

The sizes of particles that make up soil vary over a wide range. Soils
generally are called gravel, sand, silt, or clay, depending on the predominant
size of particles within the soil.
To describe soils by their particle size, several organizations have developed
particle-size classifications.

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Soil-Particles Size

Gravels are pieces of rocks with occasional particles of quartz, feldspar, and
other minerals.
Sand particles are made of mostly quartz and feldspar.
Silts are the microscopic soil fractions that consist of very fine quartz grains
and some flake-shaped particles that are fragments of micaceous minerals.
Clays are mostly flake-shaped microscopic and submicroscopic particles of
mica, clay minerals, and other minerals.
Soils can be divided into cohesive and non-cohesive soils. Cohesive soil
contains clay minerals and posses plasticity. Non-cohesive means the soil
has no shear strength if no confinement. Sand is non-cohesive and non-
plastic.
Furthermore, gravel and sand can be roughly classified as coarse textured
soils, wile silt and clay can be classified as fine textures soils.

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Mechanical Analysis of Soil

Mechanical analysis is the determination of the size range of particles

present in a soil, expressed as a percentage of the total dry weight. Two
methods generally are used to find the particle-size distribution of soil:
1. Sieve analysis: for particle sizes larger than 0.075 mm in diameter, and
2. Hydrometer analysis: for particle sizes smaller than 0.075 mm in diameter.

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Sieve Analysis

Sieve analysis is used to determine the distribution of the larger grain sizes.
The soil is passed through a series of sieves with the mesh size reducing
progressively, and the proportions by weight of the soil retained on each
sieve are measured. There are a range of sieve sizes that can be used, and
the finest is usually a 75 m sieve. Sieving can be performed either wet or
dry. Because of the tendency for fine particles to clump together, wet sieving
is often required with fine-grained soils.

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Sieve Analysis

Sieve test procedure:

1. the total mass of the soil sample (M) under sieve test;
2. determine the mass of soil retained on each sieve and the pan at last (i.e.,
M1, M2, M3, . Mn, and Mp).
3. the sum of soil mass retained on each sieve plus the mass in the pan should
be equal to the total mass (M= M1 + M2 + M3 +Mn + Mp).
4. determine the cumulative mass of soil retained above each sieve, for the
ith sieve we have M1 + M2 + M3 +.+Mi .
5. the mass of soil passing the ith sieve is M (M1 + M2 + M3 + ... +Mi )
6. the percent of soil passing the ith sieve (percent finer) is:

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Sieve Analysis

The results are plotted on semi-logarithmic graph paper with percent finer
as the ordinate (arithmetic scale) and sieve opening size as the abscissa
(logarithmic scale). This plot is referred to as the particle-size distribution
curve.

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Hydrometer Analysis

Hydrometer analysis is based on the principle of sedimentation of soil grains

in water. When a soil specimen is dispersed in water, the particles settle at
different velocities, depending on their shape, size, weight, and the viscosity
of the water. For simplicity, it is assumed that all the soil particles are
spheres and that the velocity of soil particles can be expressed by Stokes
law, according to which:

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Hydrometer Analysis

From the Stokes equation, rearranging the factors we can get :

With where Gs is the specific gravity of the soil particle, we get:

With the use of the SI units and choose g-sec/cm2 for viscosity , and 1
g/cm3 for the density of water w,and the length L in cm, and time t in
minute, and D in mm, we can get:

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Hydrometer Analysis

Since both viscosity and specific gravity of soil particles are temperature
dependent, so does parameter K. The values of K as function of specific
gravity and temperature are given in table (ASTM 2004):

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Hydrometer Analysis

In the laboratory, the hydrometer test is conducted in

a sedimentation cylinder usually with 50 g of oven-
dried sample. The soil is mixed with water and a
dispersing agent, stirred vigorously, and allowed to
settle to the bottom of a measuring cylinder. An
hydrometer is used to record the variation of specific
gravity with time. By knowing the amount of soil in
suspension, L, and t, we can calculate the percentage
of soil by weight finer than a given diameter.

where
L1 : the length of the hydrometer stem
L2: the length of the hydrometer bulb
VB : volume of the hydrometer bulb
A : cross-sectional area of the sedimentation cylinder

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Particle-Size Distribution Curve

A particle-size distribution curve can be used to determine the following four

parameters for a given soil:

Effective size (D10): This parameter is the diameter in the particle-size

distribution curve corresponding to 10% finer.

D
Uniformity coefficient (Cu) defined as: Cu 60 where D60 diameter
D10
corresponding to 60% finer.
D302
Coefficient of gradation (Cc) defined as: Cc
( D60 D10 )

D
Sorting coefficient (S0) expressed as: S 0 75
is an another parameter
D 25

for measuring uniformity, used mostly by geologists,.

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Particle-Size Distribution Curve

Curve I represents a type of soil in which most of the soil grains are the same
size. This is called poorly graded soil. Curve II represents a soil in which the
particle sizes are distributed over a wide range, termed well graded. A well-
graded soil has a uniformity coefficient greater than about 4 for gravels and 6
for sands, and a coefficient of gradation between 1 and 3 (for gravels and
sands). A soil might have a combination of two or more uniformly graded
fractions. Curve III represents such a soil. This type of soil is termed gap
graded.

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Particle-Size Distribution Curve

Example of particle-size distribution curves

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