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    9 views9 pages

    USCS

    Uploaded by

    Frederic Nietzche
    sucs

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    [Cuaaton ad dex Pre Tso, 3 680, UPL eh sein se (oerrenbity comereni ity, LPS! 59,31, canton stam h get! engrrng ‘iv enginering had thei oots in agricultural oil sience, This is why the first sysiems used by civil engineers clastified soil by grain size or soit texture. Atterberg (1905) apparently was the fist to suggert that something ‘other than gran size could be uted for sol casifiation, To this end, in 1911 he developed his consistency limits forthe behavior of fine-grained soils (See. 2.7), although at that time Tor ageeultural purpose. Later the US. Bureau of Public Roads based the classification of fine-grained sols alot entirely on the Aterberg limits and other simple txt. Casagrande (1948) describes several ther systems that have been sed in highway ‘cngincering, airfield construction, agriculture, geology, and soil science. ‘Today, only the Unified Soil Clasifcation System (USCS) and the ‘American Association of Stale Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) system are commonly used in civil enginering practice. The Unified Soil Gasification System is used moetiy by enginering agencies of the US. Government (US. Army Corps of Enginers and US, Depat- ment of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation) and many geotechrieal engineering consuling fiems and soil testing laboratories. With slight ‘modification this system is also in fairly common use in Great Briain and elsewhere outside the United. Slates Nearly all of the fate Deparimens of Transportation and Highway in the United Sats we the AASHTO system, which is based upon the observed behavior of soils From: Walex, RD, ond Kovacs ,lJ.D. 1981). Aa Ineroducrion to Geotechnical enginuauind, Prentice Fhe tas sa Cention tyr SC) « under highway pavements, The Federal Aviation Adminstration (FAA) of the US. Deparment of Transporation had its own soil clasifiation system for the design of airport pavements, but it now uses the Unified Soil Classification Sytem ‘Once you become familiar with the detail, both the USCS and [AASHTO systems are easy to use in engineering practice, 3.2 THE UNIFIED SOIL CLASSIFICATION ‘SYSTEM (USCS) ‘This system was originally developed by Profesor A. Casngrande (1948) for use in aifield construction during World War I, It was ‘modified in 1952 by Profesor Casagrande, the US. Bureau of Reclama tion, and the US. Army Comps of Engineers to mike the system also applicable to dams, foundators, and other construction (US. Army En. fineec Waterways Experiment Station, 1960) The basis for the USCS is that coarse-grained sols can be clastiied according to hei grain size Aistibations, whereas the engineering behavior of fine-grained ile is primarily related to their plasticity. In other words, ols in which “fines” (its and clays) do not affect the engineering performance are clasfed sccording Uo their grain ste characteristic, and oil in which fines do contol the enginering behavior ar clanified according to thei plastic characteristics. Therefore, only sive analysis and the Atterberg limit are necessary to completly classify 2 sil in this system "The four major divisions in the USCS are indicated in Table 3+ ‘They ae (1) coarse-grained, 2) fnraind, (3) organi sol, and (8 pat CCasifiation is performed on the material passing the 75 mum sieve, and the amount of "avers." materia is noted onthe dril logs or datasheets, Parlles greater than 300 mm equivalent diameter are termed boulders, hile materials between 78 mm and 300 mm are called cobble Coarse: ‘ined rol, sande, and gravels are those having SO% or more materia Fetained on the No. 200 sieve. These fractions have been arbitrarily but conveniently subdivided as shown in Table 3-1. Fine-grained sole are those having more than SO% passing the No. 200 sieve. The highly organic soils and peat can generally be identified visually. “The symbols in Table 3-1 are combined to form soil group symbole hich correspond to the names of typical soils ax shown in Table 3.2. ‘The coarse-grained soils are subdivided into gravels and gravely sits (G) and sands and sandy soil (8). The gravels are those having the greater percentage of the course tration (particles Irger than 4.75 mim diamete) Fetained on the No. 4 sive, and the sands are thove having the greater portion passing the No. 4 sieve. Both the gravel (G) and the sand (8) TABLE 3.1 USCS Defintons of Parca Sto, Size Ranges, and Symbols fr Conponeat Symbol Soe Range ee Nee Semw0e (Come gained st: ‘Gent ° WamioNo. tse oo rome = oN. ne or sont s Noses TiS corsa) cxne Notasamo ‘io foaomm) Mein Notocomme owns am) oa N08 mae Socio mmy (2) Fenpinedi ‘Coan sx ow soo gk _roups are divided into four secondary groups, GW and SW, GP and SP, ‘GM and $M, GC and SC, depending on the grain size distribution and nature of fines in the soils. Well- graded (W) sols havea good representa- tion of all particle sizes whereas the poorly graded (P) sols are either ‘uniform o skip- or gap-graded (Fig. 24). Whether a gravel or sandy si is ‘well graded can be determined by pitting the grain size distribution curve and computing the coefficient of uniformity C, and the coefficient of curvature C. These coefiiens are defined in Chapter 2 as ook ew and the coefficient of curvature is (220) |32, Te nti ot ciaatcton Sytem (USCS) where Dy = gain diameter at 60% passing, Dy = gain diameter at 30% passing. and yg = grain diameter at 10% passing by weight (or mast) Gradatin eteria or gravelly and sandy toil are shown in Table 3-2 (columa 6). The GW and SW groups are well graded gravelly and sandy wth less than 5% passing the No. 200 sive, The GP and SP groups ae poorly graded graves and sands with litle or 20 aonlastic fine, ‘The fine-grained soils those having more than SO% passing the No, 200 sieve, are subdivided into silts [M for the Swedish terms mo (= very fine sand) and mjala (= sit) and clays (C) based on their Haid limit and plasticity index Organic sols (0) and peat (Pd) are also included in this fraction although as shown in Table 3-1, no grain size range is speifie, Fine-raind soils are sts (M) if thee liquid limits and platcity indices Plot below the Actine on Casagrande's (1948) plasticity chart (Fig. 32). The fines are clays (C) if the LL and PI plot above the A-line. The Aine aenerlly separates the more claylike materials from thove that are alty the organs from the inorganics. The exception is organic clays (OL and OF) which pot below the Avlne, However, there soils do behave similarly tosis of lower plasticity. The alt, elay, and organi factions are further subdivided on the basis of relatively low (L) or high (H) liquid limits. The dividing lie Between th low and high liquid limits has Been arbivaily sett 80. Representative sol types for fine-grained sols ar also shown in Fig. 3.2. Ths figue, columns 4 and 5 of Table 3-2, and Table 53, willbe helpful in the ital identification and classification of fine tained sis. You can see Irom Fig. 3.2 that several different sol ypes tend to plot in approximately the same ares on the LL-Pl char, which means that these sols tend to have about the same engineering behavior. ‘Ths is why the Casagrande chart sro wel inthe engineering classic tion of sols. For example, Casagrande (1948) observed the behavior of sols atthe same igid limit with plasticity index as compared with thei behavior atthe same plasticity index but with an increasing liquid limit And he obtained the following result Sia gal Sa uF Cette te tmreg Ph lncetng roy Teco ‘eres “ong er PL erent erent Feomatay Deseo Inca Conpestty ‘ou he se Incest Raworwdusectege ——Drrase = ‘Toughness near the PL. and dry strength are very useful visual ‘lasiiation properties, and they are defined in Table 3-3. The other characterises are engineering properties, and they ate discussed in preat 22, The Untied Bo tastenton Sym (USCS) TABLE 32. Uniad Sol Catsiieston Sytam* ‘Aer US, Army Engineer Waterways Exprinet Sion (140) a Howard (197, i. 3.2 Canard platy char snowing seal apraneritine tl tyme (aveloped rom Case Shade wo areas ery ‘iss, Dia Seca, (owen in (crating reeiticn): ‘Ae cemovig parse yer han Aft temving parce rer tan ‘Ne aus propre spt ot atl No.0 eve may mold +p te ‘wis one tet Sem, A eough couieny of pry dng wate ae ‘Taeeecenay to make te owt betsy. Alow hepa 0 ey Comply y (Semen er adn tf gb renay a rmblng bes th fer ‘Tar eergt at ean fe carer ‘ned es The ey ren cree eine ay ih are hance or lays te CH pour A pl nae {SU pumas ony very ght ry sng ‘Sele apy of pence of mater Sy fac nde ed hae sou teem ‘og lng aod ft upper da sgt ry senha be Sting ‘St sueing ut erin te cary heel when pomceing he id en Srcorfeniasied | menus koa tan py wheats pa ple day hs o reaction nope ie fechas «pe rk lr show 8m ay acon “Toinos comieny nea sii | in. cae oma moloed oh comasteny of pty. I oo dy, ir mst be aed and, Inmate pence shes ond ot in gets alond nee te by empuntn, Then he pn dont by hand oe ech ntace cr eter Pins nt stead show 3 an inte Te head tea fled snd led med. Dunn tir muipsnion te mone const pada race ed ‘teins see aly platy, tod subs wen he tint tec "Aer eed eon he es ed eed oe ab ab ed, Se ugh he ens nthe pat in nde fl hsp when finaly remben he mr pete oli acon in he Wes fe read te Pine in ad gust fetes lhe hp ow the fae at nd ther ep ew play or tute aru pe ce adorn ly ch Ty en aye ve very mek and png el a leit "AO Army Eager Waray sprint on (aad Hoard « sat ciatnonton ‘eal later inthis book. For now, just rely on your general knowledge and ingenuity to figure out what thote words mean, “The upper limit line (Utne) shown in Fig. 3.2 indicates the upper range of plasticity index and liquid limit coordinates found thus far for soils (A. Casagrande, personal communication), Where the its of any soil plot tothe left of the Ulin, they should be rechecked. Some highly active clays such as bentonite may plot high above the Aline and close to the Une. Ii shown in Chapter 4 that Casagrande’ platicty chart can coven be used to identify qualitatively the predominant clay minerals in sail CConrsegrained soils with more han 12% fine are cassied as GM. and SM if the fines are silty (limits plot below the Acne on the plasticity chart) and GC and SC i he fines are clayey (mite plot above the Aline). Both wellgraded and poorly graded materials are included in there two soups. Soils having benween 5% and 12% passing the No. 200 sieve are ‘assed a5 “borderline” and have a dal symbol. The fist part of the dul Symbol indicates whether the coarse fraction is well graded or pootly traded. The second part describes the natute ofthe fines, For example, a soll classified as a SP-SM means that itis a poorly graded sand with between 5% and 12% sity fines. Similarly « GW-GC ie a wel-graded ‘ravel with some clayey fines that plot above the Aline Fine-grained soils can also have dual symbols, Obviously, ifthe limits plot within the shaded zone on Fig. 32 (Pl between 4 and 7 and LL between about 12 and 25), then the sil clases as a CL-ML, Howard (1977) makes the practical suggestion that ifthe LL and P vals fll neat the Aine or near the LL = 30 ine, then dual symbols should be used, Possible dual symbole then are: ctor Bordetne symbols can also be used for soils with shout SO fines and coarae-riined fractions. In this case posible dual symbols are: ons. ex ce, ch sen Seat sect 22, The nid 9a Clnatcton Systm (USCS) ° Figure 3.3 is practical guide for bordrine eases of sol classiica- UNIFIED SOIL CLASSIFICATION svsrEN doriineGetstond) [A step-by-step procedure for USCS clasificaion of sols, conven cenlly presented in Fig 34, shows a process of elimination of all the ‘possible unl the only one let indicates the specie eassiication. The Following steps, adapted trom the Corps of Engineers, may help in this process (US. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, 1960). Clas: ‘ication should be done in conjunction with Table 3.2 and Fig. 3.4: 1. Determine if the soil ie coarse grtined, fine grained, or highly ‘organic. Tis is done by visual inspection and/or by determining the amount of soil passing the No. 200 seve. 2 I coarse grained: 4. Perform a seve analysis and plot the gain size distribution carve, Determine the percentage passing the No. 4 sieve and lan the sol as gravel (grater percentage retained on No.4) ‘or sand (grater percentage passing No.4) bs, Determine the amount of materi passing the No. 200 seve. If les than 5% pasts the No. 20 sieve, examine the shape of the train size curve; if well graded, clasily as GW or SW: if poorly fade, clasly a8 GP or SP. «I between $5 and 12% ofthe material passes the No. 200 sieve, iti a bordrine cate, and the clasification should have dual 212 The Unie Sl Catteaton Sytem (USCS) o symbols appropriate to grading and plasticity characteristics (GW-GM, SW-SM, ete). 4. If more than 12% passes the No, 200 seve, perform the Ate. ‘berg limits on the minus No. 4 seve fraction. Use the past. lity chart fo determine the correct clasificaion (GM, SM, GC, SC, GM-GC, or SMSC), 3. fine grained: a Perform Atterberg limits tests on minus No, 40 seve materi. 1 the liquid limit is less than 50, casify as L, and if the quid limit is greater than 50, classify as H. ». For L: I he limits plot below the A-line andthe hatched zone on the plasticity chart, determine by color, odor, or the change {in figui limit and plastic lit eased by oven-dryng the sl ‘whether i i organic (OL) oF inorganic (ML). Ifthe its plo inthe hatched zone, classify as CL-ML. I the limits plot above the Acline and the hatched zone on the platcty chart (Fig 32) classify as CL. . For H: Ifthe limits plot below the A-line on the plasticity chart, determine whether organic (OH) or inoegaic (MH). If {he limits plot above the Aine clasity as CH. 4. For limits which plot in the hitched zone on the plasticity char, closet the Aline or around LL = 50, use al (border Tine) symbols as shown in Fig 33 Although the letter symbols in the USCS are convenient, they donot completely describe a sil or soil deposit. For this reason, descriptive tems Should also be used along with the leter symbols for & complete ti classification. Table 3-4 from US. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (1960) provides some useful information for desenbing sis, Tn the case of all sil such characteristics as color, odor, and homogeneity ofthe deposit should be oberved and included in the sample Aeseription. For coarse-grained acs such items at grin shape, mineralogical conten, degee of weathering, in stu density and degree of compaction, and prevence or absence of fines should be noted and ncladed. Adjectives such a rounded, angular, and subangulat are commonly used to describe tain shape (se Fig. 25) The insta density and degre of compaction is formally obtained indirectly by observing how difficult the material i 10 excavate orto penetrate with devices called penetrates. Terms such as 7 Tote, loose, mem, dense, and very dense are used to desrbe ia sits density. A granular deposit which can, for example, be excavated readily {42 The Unt 90 ChaateatonSyatim (USCS) ” ‘TABLE 3.4 Infomation Requted fr Describing Sotst Counegrained soles Fine-giained sles ocr ined oe cx Cena SSS. ws Seca SS ote ae ae Sees eae rere a nae op eee ‘proximate percestages of sand and gravel, ey ce ee Sceectso et of oo cau Sees coed orc ooo a eesccitsee sooner el = a con co opm tay mk a ST cole ec trettest seater tere wetted at cies Tove pan eanie erttene Ee sas yee ae Beat ata Sm Be by hand would be considered very lose, whereas a deposit of the same material which requtes power tone for excavation would be described st ‘ery dense or pevhaps cemented, For the fine-grained fraction, natral water content, consistency, and remolded conssteney should be noted in the sample description. Con Fstency in the natral state corresponds in some respects 10 degree of ‘compaction in coarse grtned soils and is usually evaluated by noting the tise by which the deposit can be excavated or penetrated, Soch terms a8 ‘07 of, sf, medium, sf, ery aiff, and hard ae employed to deseribe ‘consistency, (Sometimes the word firm i used synonymous) wih the erm Lf.) Fine-ganed sols may be additionally described by using the tess explained in Table 33 for ilataney, toughness, and dry strength. Other {echniques for visual clasifiation of soils should be learned and practiced in the laboratory. Excellent descriptions of visual classification and iden fication procedures are found inthe US.BR. (1978) Earth Manual, Ap- pendix E-, and ASTM (1980) Designation D 2488, EXAMPLE 3.1 Given Sieve analysis and plasticity data fr the following thre sil SewSin Sf RPee Pa ” + ° a 5 n ae te 5 ve B Required ‘Casity the thre soils according tothe Uniid Soil Clasticaion System, Solution: - Use Table 32 and Fig 34 1, Plot the grai size dstibution curves for the thre sis (shown in Fig. Ex.) 2. For soil 1, we see rom the curve that more than SOF passes the No. 200 sieve (60%); thus the soil is fine-grained sil and the Aterberg limits are required to further classify the soi. With LL = 20 and PI =, the soll pots in-the hatched zone on the plasticity chart. Therefore the soil is « CLML. }. Soil is immediately seen tobe a coarse-grained si since only 5% passes the No. 200 seve Since 97% pases the No.4 seve, the sol is asand rather than a gravel Next, note the amount of material passing the No. 200 sieve (9%), From Table 32 and Fig. 34 the toll is “borderline” and therefore has a dual symbol such as SP-SM or SW.SM depending on the values of G, and C.. From he grain size distribution curve, Fig. Bx. 3.1, we find that Dg= (071 mm, Dyy = 034 mm, and Dy = 0.18 mm. The coeliciet of Fg 38 uniformity Gi Pe = oh ass

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