Soil Mechanics – Lecture 10

Problem 1: At a site of housing project following fine-grained soil characteristics are established,

LL=300%, PL=55%, Natural water content at site=80%, clay content=60%

Compute followings

1. Plasticity index, liquidity index and activity.

2. Find the state of soil at site & predominant type of mineral present.
3. Use the physical meaning of soil-consistency indices and decide that soil is suitable for
conventional foundation or you require to design foundation using expansive soil foundation
design. Provide engineering rationales.
4. Also give recommendations for foundation construction.

Problem 2: Following are the results of the liquid limit test,

No of blows, N 15 22 25 26 42
Water content (%) 62 47 42 28 28
Calculate followings,

1. LL
2. PL
3. PI if natural water content is 29.6%
4. Void ratio at LL if Gs=2.6
5. On ultimate loading of soil, would it behave like brittle or plastic?

Problem 3: Consider a complex site situation where a drainage pipeline is passing underneath the
proposed building foundation site. This pipeline has potential of leakage. The dimension of proposed
foundation raft is 20mx 15m, whereas pipe is of 50mm radius found in a trench of 500mm beneath the
center of proposed raft plan. This trench with pipe of 400mmx400mm filled with same site soil backfill is
running along the length of proposed raft. The soil is classified as fine grained soil with LL=210%, PL=40%,
natural water content at site is 50% with clay contents of 60%.

How would you utilize the soil consistency knowledge to decide about design consequences of raft
foundation (if any)? Draw conceptual sketch and write down discussion if there is any potential issue of
soil swelling? If yes, why? How we can mitigate?

References :
Chapter 3, Principle of Geotechnical Engineering, By B. M. Das