TITLE

Sieve Analysis

OBJECTIVE

Determine the grain size of a soil sample by plotting the Particle Distribution curve.

Identify the coefficient of uniformity (Cu)and coefficient of concavity (Cc)

INTRODUCTION
A sieve analysis is a practice or procedure are used to assess the particle size distribution of a
granular material. The size distribution is often of critical importance to the way the material
performs in use. A sieve analysis can be performed on any type of non-organic or organic granular
materials including sands, crushed rock, clays, granite, coal, soils, and a wide range of manufactured
powders, grain and seeds, down to a minimum size depending on the exact method. Information
obtained from grain size analysis can be used to predict soil water movement although permeability
tests are more generally used.
Sieving is a simple technique for separating particles of different sizes. ASTM D 421 specifies
the sample preparation for the sieve analysis test procedure is specified under ASTM D422. Coarse
particles are separated or broken up by grinding against one-another and the sample is sieved by the
aid of a stack consisting sieves with the sizes of 2.36mm, 1.18mm, 0.85mm, 0.60mm, 0.425mm,
0.25mm and 0.075mm.

THEORY
The suitability of a soil for a particular use in construction is often dependent on the distribution of
gain sizes in the soil mass. There are two tests used to analyze the particle size distribution in a
soil. One of these methods is the sieve and analyze. The test is a fundamental requirement for
identification and for specification compliance testing for coarse soils.
The stack of sieves is prepared with progressively increasing sieve openings and the pan is placed
at the bottom. Therefore the particle diameter is the side dimension of a square hole of the relevant
sieve. The method covers the quantitate determination of the particle size distribution in a soil from
the coarse sand size to the clay size. The samples consisting larger amount of particles smaller than
0.075mm diameter are analyzed using a different method known as hydrometer analysis.

The following relationships are used to plot the PSD curve and to determine the coefficient
of uniformity and the coefficient of concavity.

Weight of soil retained

= (Weight of soil + Sieve) (Weight of Sieve)

Percentage retained of any sieve=

Wsieve
W total

Where WSieve is the weight of aggregate in the sieve and Wtotal is the total weight of the aggregate. The
next step is to find the cumulative percent of aggregate retained in each sieve. To do so, add up the
total amount of aggregate that is retained in each sieve and the amount in the previous sieves. The
cumulative percent passing of the aggregate is found by subtracting the percent retained from 100%.
Coefficient of uniformity gives an indication of the spread of particle size in a given soil sample.
This is calculated by,

Cu

D 60
D 10

The coefficient of concavity or graduation gives a measure of the shape of the curve between the
D60 and D10 grain size and it is calculated by,

Cc

D 2 30
D 10. D 60

Here, D10, D30 and D60 are the soil diameters, at which 10%, 30%, and 60% soil weights are
finer, respectively.
Sieving can be performed in either wet or dry conditions. Dry sieving is used only for soil
with a negligible amount of plastic fines such as gravels and clean sands, whereas wet sieving is
applied to soils with plastic fines. According to the British Standard, dry sieving may be carried
out only on materials for which this procedure gives the same results as the wet-sieving
procedure. This means that it is applicable only to clean granular materials, which usually implies
clean sandy or gravelly soils that is, soils containing negligible amounts of particles of silt or clay
size. Normally the wet-sieving procedure should be followed for all soils. If particles of medium
gravel size or larger are present in significant amounts, the initial size of the sample required may
be such that riffling is necessary at some stage to reduce the sample to a manageable size for fine
sieving.

Types of soil
Soil type can be identified according to their characteristic such as group, properties and size of
particles as shown in table below.
Group
Course-

Soil properties
Non-cohesive

grained
Fine-grained

soil
Cohesive soil

Organic

Organic soil

Soil size (mm)

0.06 2.0
2.0 - 60

Soil type
Sand
Gravel

< 0.002
0.002 0.06
<0.002

Clay
Silt
Peat soil

Coarse-grained soil such as sand and gravels are rock sediments transported by weathering
agents such as water, wind and others. The action of these agents causes the soil to be rounded.
The particle of fine-grained soil such as clay and organic soil are flaky. Some shapes of soil
particle are angular, prism, flaky and round.

Properties of soil
There are three properties of soil that is cohesive soil, non-cohesive soil and organic soil.
Cohesive soil
Cohesive soil contains clay minerals and posses plasticity. Cohesive soil is formed from flaky fine
particles with high cohesive force. In moist condition, the soil particles stick to each other due to
this cohesive force. Cohesive soil has low permeability and has ability to retain water for longer
time. In dry condition, the cohesive soil form hard solid particles. Some examples of cohesive soil
are clay and silt.

Non-cohesive soil
Non-cohesive means the soil has no shear strength if no confinement. Non-cohesive soil has
particles which are rounded, angular or prismatic. The texture of the soil is hard and rough, and the
bond between particles is loose. Its stability depends on the friction between the particles. The soil
has high permeability and in rainy condition, water quickly seeps among soil particles. As a result,
non-cohesive soil cannot retain water. Some examples of non-cohesive soil are sand and gravel.
3

Organic soil
Organic soil is formed as a result of the decomposition of organic materials, plants and decaying
organism. The soil is also formed from the formation of humus due to the reaction of bacteria
and fungus which decay the organic waste. Humus is a biochemical element which causes
organic soil to change color into grey and dark.
Organic soil has low density and low bearing capacity because of its loose particle packing and
brittle but is able to retain water with very high moisture content. The soil also has high plastic
limit, liquid limit, acidic, soft and compressible. It is not suitable for supporting load. An
example of organic soil is peat soil

APPARATUS

Set of sieves {2.36mm, 1.18mm, 0.85mm, 0.60mm, 0.425mm, 0.25mm and 0.075mm}

Sieve shaker

Cleaning brush

Balance sensitive up to 0.1g

PROCEDURE
5

An oven dried soil sample which was allowed to cool was provided in order to conduct the

laboratory experiment.
500g of the given sample was measured accurately using the balance.

Next the weights of each and every sieve were measured.

The stack of sieves were arranged in a way that the largest mesh opening is at the top and the
smallest is at the bottom.

The pan was attached at the bottom end.

Thereafter, the soil sample was poured into the top most sieve and in order to prevent the loss
of particles while shaking a cover plate was used.

The stack of sieves were carefully placed on the mechanical sieve, the weights of the sieves
were measured separately.