GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

Plasticity and Structure of Soil

(Part 2)
Contents:

1. Activity
2. Plasticity Chart
3. Soil Structure

Lecturer:

Mark Alex Nogales

Instructor, CE
Activity of Soil

Skempton was a civil engineer. Through the lab tests he noticed that plasticity index of soil is directly
proportional to the percent amount of the clay sized particles present in the soil.

where A =activity

*Activity is used as an index for identifying the swelling potential of clay soils.
Skempton (1953) observed that the plasticity index of a soil increases linearly with the percentage of
clay-size fraction (% finer than 2 μm by weight)
Seed, Woodward, and Lundgren (1964a)

where C’ is a constant for a given soil.

Polidori (2007)

where CF is the clay fraction (2 μm)

Plasticity Chart
Casagrande (1932) studied the relationship of the plasticity index to the liquid limit

PI 0.73(LL 20) A-line

U-line

*An A-line separates the inorganic clays from the inorganic silts. Inorganic clay values lie above the A-line, and values
for inorganic silts lie below the A-line.

*The U-line is approximately the upper limit of the relationship of the plasticity index to the liquid limit for any
currently known soil
Estimation on how to get the value of Shrinkage C
 Structures in Cohesionless Soil

The structures generally encountered in cohesionless soils can be divided into two major categories:

a. single grained
b. and honeycombed.
cubical or simple cubical packing.
Structures in Cohesive Soils
 The microstructure is more important from a fundamental viewpoint. Table 4.3 summarizes
the macrostructures of clay soils.
Problem Set 1