Apparatus:

1. Set of sieves.
2. Mortar and pestle or a mechanical soil pulverizes.
3. Mechanical sieve shaker.

Procedure.
Before sieving, the soil should be air dried in order to avoid lumps of fine
particles and also to prevent clogging of the finer sieves.

Obtain the soil sample which has already been pulverized or washed by
placing it on sieve No. 200 and then dry it in an oven.

Sieves should also be cleaned before use.

Arrange a nest of sieves including sieves No.4, 10, 16, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200
and Pan.
The actual sieving operation can be done by hand or as in modern
laboratories by a sieve shaker.

Place the stack of sieves in the mechanical sieves shaker. A 10-minute

shaking period is suggested in Sieve analysis of soil

A large quantity sample required longer shaking than a smaller sample.

Note that if the entire stack of sieves does not fit into the shaker, perform a
hand shaking operation until the top few sieves can be removed from the
stack and then place the remained of the stack in the mechanical shaker.

Remove the nest of sieves from the shaker and obtain the weight of material
retained on each sieve.
Sum these weights and compare with the actual weight taken.
A loss of more than 2 percent by weight of the residual weight is considered
unsatisfactory, and the test should be repeated.
Compute the percent retained on each sieve by dividing the weight retained
on each sieve by the original sample weight.
Compute the percent passing (or percent finer) by starting with 100 percent
and subtracting the cumulative percent retained for that sieve.
Observation and Calculation.
Weight of sample used in this Sieve analysis of soil is 1000 gm.

Note:
1. Weight retained in percent = [Weight of soil retained (gm)/Total weight of
sample] x100.
2. Cumulative percent retained = Weight retained in % + Previous line of
Cumulative percent retained.
3. Percent passing = 100 – Cumulative percent retained.
Precautions:
1. Loose clots may be broken with hands or rubber tipped pestle.
2. Sieves should also be cleaned before use.

3. The whole set of sieves should be shaken in each direction.

4. Weigh the retained soil on each sieve carefully.
5. Soil should be oven dried at 100 +- 5°C for 24 hours before sieve analysis