University of Duhok

College of Engineering
Civil Department
Soil Mechanics-Practical
Third stage
2017-2018

A REPORT ABOUT

Determination of In-Place Soil Density

By Sand Cone Method

Submitted by: Ninos E. Dinkha

Group: A3

Testing Date: 26/3/2018

Submission Date: 16/4/2018

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 Purposes
The purpose of this test is to determine the in-place soil density and to control the
results of field compaction in earth embankment, road fill, and structural backfill.

Calculations and Results

In the laboratory
3
Volume of Mold, V1 944 cm

weight of base plate and empty mold (W1) 583 gm

weight of base plate, mold and sand (W2) 4756 gm

Weight of Sand W3 = W2 – W1 4173 gm

3
Unit weight of Sand ρ = W3/V1 1.33 gm/ cm

Weight of (plastic Gallon +cone +sand ) [Before using] W4 2077 gm

Weight of (plastic Gallon +cone +sand ) [After using] W5 583 gm

Weight of sand in cone W6 = W4 – W5 1494 gm

Volume of funnel and base plate V2 = W6/ ρ 1123.3 cm

3

In the field
Weight of Dish (Empty) (W7) 8695 gm
Weight of (Dish+ Soil excavated) (W8) 5775 gm

Sand used (Weight of soil excavated) W9 = W7 - W8 2920 gm

2
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 Volume of sand V3 = W9/ ρ 2195.5 cm
3

3
Volume of hole V4 = V3 – V2 1072.18 cm

Sand Cone Test – Weight of Wet soil

255 gm
Empty container (W10)

2424 gm
Container + wet soil (W11)

2169 gm
Wet soil W12 = W11 – W10

Water Content Test

Moisture can number

255 gm
W1 = weight of empty can

2424 gm
W2 = weight of can + wet soil

2260 gm
W3 = weight of can + dry soil

2005 gm
Ws = weight of solids

164 gm
Ww = weight of pore water

8.179 %
Water content, ω = Ww/Ws *100

Calculated values
3
γ wet (field) = W12 /V4 2.023 gm/cm

3
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 3
γt 1.873 gm/cm
γ dry (field) =
1+ ω

3
Lab. Max. dry unit weight ( γ d max ¿ 1.67 gm/cm

γ d field 112%
RC = γ d max . lab.
* 100

Discussions and Conclusion

This experiment is conducted to determine the dry unit weight of soil. In the field
during earth compaction work, it is necessary from time to time to check the
compacted dry unit weight of soil and compare it with the specification drawn up
for the construction and the sand cone method is considered as one of the
simplest methods of determining the field unit weight. This test more commonly
used with highway projects to compare the field density with the laboratory
density to know the road is well or not. In our test we use the Ottawa sand to
determine the volume of the hole because it has a well graded and similar grain
size which will give us an accurate volume.

Here, we determined the moist unit weight of the soil, the dry unit weight and we
have the lab. Max unit weight. From these parameters we can calculate the
relative density percentage or the relative compaction. In the specifications, the
acceptable relative density must be between 95- 99%, in our experiment we got
112% and this value exceeds 100 and is impossible to achieve which means there
were definitely errors in the test.

Errors can come from:

 human errors
 error in balancing
 losses of soil during weighing
 excessive amounts of water added

4
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 Compaction of the soil increases the overall strength of the soil by firmly
packing the solid particles of the soil together and thus is a very important
factor in the construction works such as the construction of highways,
airports and other huge structures.

A good compacted soil will have at least a relative compaction (%) about
95%. There are other methods for determining the field unit weight such as
the Rubber Balloon test and the Nuclear Density test but the sand cone
method is the preferable one and is considered as an easy and simple
method for determining the field unit weight of the compaction.

5
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