HYDROMETER TEST- EXAMPLE CALCULATION FOR A SINGLE ROW IN DATASHEET

Suppose you have following inputs;

Weight of the total sample 55 grams

Weight of the soil sample passing from no 40 sieve 48 grams
Specific Gravity of solids (Gs) 2.65 -
Meniscus Corr. (cm) 0.0005 g/cm3
Volume of hydrometer 55 cm3
Area of cylinder 28.274 cm2
agent 0.002 g/cm3
0
Tref 22 C
H1 16 cm
H2 6 cm
1 1.000 g/cm3
2 1.040 g/cm3

With these inputs, following procedure can be applied to do calculations of a single row in lab
datasheet for a hydrometer reading 1.026 at time t = 120 sec (2 min. reading);

Density of fluid f (g/cc) calculation: Fluid is water + sodium hexametaphosphate solution. In our
experiment, we have assumed that temperature is constant during the process, so density of fluid will
remain constant during the test. For this example, temperature is equal to 22 0C and water density is
0.99777 g/cc at this temperature.

𝜌𝑓 = 𝜌𝑤@𝑇 + ∆𝜌𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡 = 0.99777 + 0.002 = 0.99977 𝑔/𝑐𝑚3

Density of Suspension (g/cc): In this step, you need to calculate density of the slurry for each
hydrometer reading. The reading taken from the hydrometer is specific gravity of the slurry so you
need to multiply the reading with density of the water which hydrometer is calibrated. Hydrometer is
calibrated at 19.5 0C distilled water. The density of water at 19.5 0C is 0.9983 g/cm3. Thus, for a
hydrometer reading 1.026 density of suspension should be calculated as follows;

𝜌𝑠𝑢𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 = (1.026 + 0.0005) ∗ 0.9983 = 1.0248 𝑔/𝑐𝑚3

In the above calculation, 0.0005 is meniscus correction cm.

Height of Fall H(cm): Height of fall is the distance between slurry surface and centroid of the
hydrometer. For any hydrometer reading, height of fall must be calculated in compliance with the
interpolation formula written in Lab Sheet part 7.3. For Gs=1.026, height of fall can be calculated as
follows:
 (6 − 16) 55
𝐻 = 16 + ∗ (1.0248 − 1.000) − = 8.83 𝑐𝑚
(1.040 − 1.000) 2 ∗ 28.274
Particle Diameter D, (mm): The particle diameter passing from the centroid of the hydrometer at
time t can be calculated with the given formula below:

18   H
D 
 f  g  Gs  1 t

In the above formula,

 is the viscosity of the water and for our example it is equal to 0.961 MPa.s for 22 0C temperature,
f is the density of the fluid that is calculated as 0.99977 g/cm3,

g is the gravitational acceleration and equals to 981 cm/s2,

Gs is the specific gravity of solids, in our example it is 2.65,

H is the height of fall and for this example it is 8.83cm,

t is time in seconds. Since our reading 1.026 is taken at t = 2 minutes, t is equal to 120 sec.

Putting everything together on the formula;

18 ∗ 0.961 ∗ 8.83
𝐷=√ = 0.02805 𝑚𝑚
0.99977 ∗ 981 ∗ (2.65 − 1) ∗ 120

Percent Finer Than D (%): With this calculation, you can find the percentage finer than particle
diameter calculated as 0.02805 mm
2.65 1000
%𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 0.02805 𝑚𝑚 = ∗ ∗ (1.0248 − 0.99977) ∗ 100 = 83.75%
2.65 − 1 48
Thus, %83.75 of the soil is finer than 0.02805mm.

Scaling the results to the entire soil sample: Above formulation will give you fractions of sample that
goes into hydrometer test. Since some of the particles remain on the number 40 sieve, a scaling must
be done to find real fractions. For this example, to find which fraction of the total sample (55 grams)
is smaller than 0.02805 mm, following procedure can be done. 48 grams out of 55 grams of the soil
specimen is used in the hydrometer test. In order to calculate adjusted percentage finer than 0.02805
mm, we need to multiply 83.75 with the ratio 48/55.
48
𝐴𝑑𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝐷 = 83.75 ∗ = 73.09%
55

73.09% of the 55 grams is smaller than 0.02805 mm.

Remember!! Below chart shows particle diameter limits for silt and clay. Numbers are in mm.

Clay size less than 0.002

Silt size 0.002–0.075