01-08-2021

Lecture 3
CE 310 – Transportation Engineering – I
SOIL

Dharamveer Singh
Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
IIT Bombay, 400076, India
Phone: 22-2576-7304
E-mail: dvsingh@iitb.ac.in

Disclaimer: The presentation contains photo/images/content taken from various

online sources for educational purpose.

What to Expect from this Lecture

• Soil on road work, definition of subgrade
• Failures of pavements due to poor soil
• Engineering requirement of Soil
• Laboratory tests to characterize Soil
• Field case study on failure of roads due to poor soil
• Quality tests in field to check strength of soil
• Field data sheet on soil properties
• Modulus of soil for pavement design

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Quality of soil for subgrade

Sprinkling Water (Quantity?)

Grader – maintaining subgrade level

Quality Check
Compaction (How long?)
(What property?)
Top 500 mm prepared soil bed on natural ground is defined as subgrade for major
highway (for village road 300 mm prepared soil is also fine)

Quality of soil for embankment

Embankment
Embankment

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Geosynthetics on Subgrade

• Usually above black cotton soil

• Drainage
• Better dispersion of load
• Improve load bearing capacity

Geotextile above subgrade level

Geo-cells above subgrade level

Black Cotton Soil

Overburden
Pressure • Low strength (low California
Bearing Ratio – CBR)
• High Plasticity Index (PI)
• Swelling and Shrinkage nature
Swelling • Failure of roads
Pressure • High swelling pressure
• High free swelling index (FSI)

Overburden Pressure: 27.5 kN/m2

Swelling pressure of soil: 52.2 kN/m2

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Rutting and Cracking – Due to Poor Subgrade

Field
water
content,
%
Lab Optimum Water
Subgrade Results Content (OMC)
Ch. 69+690 25.95 13.82
Ch. 70+480 28.86 13.82
Ch. 75+660 24.73 14.10
Ch. 78+480 35.42 13.02

Failure of Subgrade – Leads to Failure of Pavement

Rutting – Permanent deformation of

pavement layer
Rutting
IRC 37-2012: Code for design of
flexible pavement
• Recommend to control vertical
stress (so deformation) on top of
subgrade, to avoid rutting.

Way to control (deformation):

• Better quality of subgrade material
• Proper compaction
• Cover subgrade with aggregates or
bituminous layer, with high quality
material, thickness of pavement.

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Desirable Properties of Soil

• Stability: Adequate stability to resist permanent deformation under loads
– Check compaction level of subgrade in the field (How??)
• Incompressibility: Minimum variation in volume ensures minimum
differential expansion
– Consolidation of soil
• Permanency of strength: Should retain desired sub-grade strength for long
duration
– Durability, wet-dry cycle, freeze-thaw cycle
• Minimum changes in volume and stability: Under adverse conditions of
weather and ground water
– Swelling potential of soil (free swelling index)
• Good drainage: Essential to avoid excessive moisture retention
– Should not retain excessive moisture, like black cotton soil
• Ease of compaction: Ensures higher dry density and strength
- Easy to achieve require degree of strength in field (during construction)
• Cleanliness of soil: Not organic matter If natural ground level has poor
quality of soil, then a good quality
• Performance under dynamic and static load
soil needs to be borrowed
• Leaching potential: Should not leach harmful chemical in ground water

Basic Laboratory Tests on Soil

• Liquid Limit (LL)
• Plastic Limit (PL)
• Plasticity Index (PI)
• Gradation
• Classification
• Specific Gravity
• Proctor Test
• Chemical Analysis
• Free Swelling Index (FSI)
• pH
You are going to study majority of tests
in Geotechnical Engg. Course

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Performance Tests on Soil

• California Bearing Ratio (CBR)
– Strength, used for design of pavements
• Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS)
– Usually for stabilized soil (soil+additives – cement, fly-ash, lime)
• Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP)
– Check quality of subgrade in field (new or old pavements)
• Resilient Modulus
– Strength under dynamic loading, used for design of pavement
• Flexural Strength
- Usually for stabilized soil – As they tend to crack under load (like cement
concrete)
• Durability
– Wet-dry cycle, Freeze-thaw: to know how strength is retained after such cycles
• Direct Shear Test
– (C-Φ parameters): Embankment design, slope-stability analysis
• Permeability
– Drainage Some of the tests you would study in
Geotechnical Engg. Course
• Plate Load Test
– Modulus of subgrade reaction – design of rigid pavement

IS classification of soil
Classification of soil is based on gradation and index properties
- Coarse grained soil ( >50% retained on 0.075 mm sieve)
- Gravels (G) ( > 50% retain on 4.75 mm sieve)
and Sand (S) ( > 50% pass through on 4.75 mm sieve)
- Well graded (W)
- Well graded with clay (C) GW: well graded gravel
- Poorly graded (P) SP: Poorly graded sand
- Silt (M) SC : Well graded sand with clay
- Fine grained soil (> 50% passed through 0.075 mm sieve)
- L: Low to medium compressibility (LL <50%) and
- H: High compressibility (LL >50%)
Gravel: size > 4.75 mm
- M : Inorganic silt
Sand: size (4.75 – 0.075 mm)
- C : Inorganic clay
Silt + Clay: size < 0.075 mm
- O : Organic soil
ML: Inorganic silt with low compressibility
CH: Inorganic clay with high compressibility

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Optimum Moisture Content (OMC) and

Maximum Dry Density (MDD)

What quantity of water to be

added to gain maximum density
(compaction of soil) in field

Proctor Test – OMC and MDD Curve

- To estimate quantity of water (optimum moisture
content – OMC) to be added for compaction
- Maximum compaction density (maximum dry density –
MDD) subgrade soil can achieved at OMC
- MDD is used to check compaction level in field

 Usually modified proctor (heavy proctor) is used for

NH and SH
 Standard proctor (light proctor) for MDR or VR
(Primary difference is in compaction efforts)

15.9
15.7
Dry Density( kN/m3)

Required field compaction

15.5  Subgrade= 97% of MDD
 Embankment fill: 95% of MDD
15.3 OMC: 22.6%
MDD: 15.78 kN/m3 Example:
15.1 After compaction field dry density
14.9 is 14.50 kN/m3
Estimate compaction level:
14.7 14.50/15.78 = 91.8% (Okay??)
14.5
Sand replacement method is used
16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
for measurement of field density
Water content (%)

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Rutting and Cracking – Due to Poor Subgrade

National Highway in MH
Field
water
content,
%
Lab Optimum Water
Subgrade Results Content (OMC)
Ch. 69+690 25.95 13.82
Ch. 70+480 28.86 13.82
Ch. 75+660 24.73 14.10
Ch. 78+480 35.42 13.02

California Bearing Ratio (CBR)

• Strength Indictor of soil, used for pavement design
• Preparation of sample at OMC
• 4 days soaked CBR is used for flexible pavement design (why?)
• Record load versus penetration data
• Find load at 2.5 mm and 5 mm penetration
• Calculate CBR (usually CBR at 2.5 mm penetration is reported).
.
𝐶𝐵𝑅 % = *100
60 .

40
Force (kg)

20

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Penetration on Plunger, mm
CBR <2%, is not acceptable
Penetration Load (kg) Standard Load (kg) CBR (%) Minimum CBR should be above 5%
2.5 mm 33 1370 = 33/1370* 100 = 2.39 Low CBR: Either borrow a good soil
5 mm 38 2055 = 38/2055*100 =1.84 or modify or stabilize property

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Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS)

 Indicates strength of stabilized (cement or

other additive to improve strength) soil
 Conducted in unconfined condition
 Usually for stabilized soils
600

500

400
Load (kg)

300

200

100

0 Sample size:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
• Diameter: 100 mm
Strain (%)
• Height: 200 mm
Recommended Value of UCS - IRC 37-2012 (Code for design of flexible pavements)
• Stabilized (cement addition) granular sub-base (GSB): Min. UCS: 1.5 to 3 MPa
• Stabilized base (aggregate or soil + cement) (WMM): Min. UCS : 4.5 to 7 MPa

Modulus of Subgrade Reaction (k) - Plate Load Test

• Conducted in the field
• Measure modulus of subgrade reaction, used for
design of rigid pavements
• Deflection vs Load graph
• Modulus of subgrade reaction (k) =
Pressure/Deflection (load at 1.25 mm settlement)
• Pressure: Load/cross section area of steel plate

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k = 9.51 MP/m or 0.97 kg/cm3

p p
Load (kN)

3 K 
2
 0.125
1

0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 1.25
Settlement (mm)

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Relationship between CBR and k

(IRC 58-2015 -Code for design of rigid Pavement)

Quality parameters for soil

Ministry of Road Surface and Transportation (MORTH)
Subgrade Embankment
• LL <50% • LL <50%
• PI <25% • PI < 25%
• FSI <50% • FSI <50%
• MDD: Not less than 17.5 kN/m3 • MDD: Not less than 15.2 kN/m3 (upto
• Field compaction: Min. 97% 3 m)
MDD (same for shoulder) • MDD: Not less than 16 kN/m3 for
height above 3 m
• Single layer thickness: Not more
than 200 mm • Compaction: 95% MDD
• Avoid using marshy, peat, • Single layer thickness: 100 – 300 mm
swampy soil • Avoid using marshy, peat, swampy soil
• CBR > 5% • CBR > 5%
• Size of coarse materials in soil mixture shall not exceed 75 mm and 50 mm when placed
in embankment and subgrade, respectively.
• Sometimes soil is modified or stabilized to improve properties using various additives
(fly-ash, lime, cement)
• Black cotton soil: High PI and low CBR. Approx. 4-6% lime is effective in improving
quality

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Properties of Soil for a Highway Project

Limiting Parameters:
LL <50%
Is the borrowed soil suitable for
PI <25%
subgrade? FSI <50%
CBR > 8%
MDD: Not less than 17.5 kN/m3 (1.750 g/cc)

Resilient modulus
Resilient modulus of soil:
- Like elastic modulus of a material, however, for soil only recoverable strain is
considered for calculating resilient modulus
- It is used for design of flexible pavements (estimate stress-strain behavior in
different layers of pavements)

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Resilient modulus
- Challenges: Measurement of resilient modulus requires advance instruments, skilled
manpower, and time, labor intensive. Thus empirical equations are used in many
developed country.

- Calculated based on soaked CBR (%) of a soil (IRC 37-2012).

E (MPa) = 10 * CBR, if CBR<5% and

E (MPa) = 17.6 *(CBR)0.64 for CBR > 5%

Limitations: May not be applicable for all kind of soils, stabilized soil

CE#2
CE#2. Estimation of E and CBR of soil for the following case
• CBR of a soil:10%, Estimate resilient modulus ?
• E of soil is 100 MPa, Estimate CBR?

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