SOIL, CONCRETE &

ASPHALT LAB
Lic. Dora G. Salazar Blas.
English Teacher
 One of the pioneers
in the soil mechanic
study.

Lic. Dora G. Salazar Blas.

English Teacher

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB

 ARTHUR CASAGRANDE
Civil Engineer
1902 - 1981

He was born at Italian section of Astro –

Hungarian.
He was a full time teacher in the MIT
and important person of the Soil
Engineering group at Harvard.

Next to Karl Terzaghi built the

influential discipline of Soil Mechanic
through the criteria formation and the
tests that determined the comprehension
of the behaviour of the soil under load.

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB

Casagrande Cup tools & components
Casagrande Cup Details

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB

 Casagrande cup components

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB

 Casagrande Cup
 The standard liquid limit test apparatus was designed by Arthur
Casagrande in the 1930s based on the procedure developed by Albert
Atterberg; therefore, the liquid limit test is sometimes called the Casagrande
test. The test apparatus consists of a Casagrande cup, also known as the
liquid limit device, and a Casagrande grooving tool.

 Soil is patted smooth across the brass cup to a thickness of 10 mm. The
grooving tool is used to make a groove completely through the soil pat that
is 2 mm wide at the bottom, 11 mm wide at the top, and 8 mm deep
(ASTM 2010).

 The brass cup is hinged on one edge so that a cam shaft with a hand-
operated crank can be used to raise the cup and allow it to drop abruptly 10
mm onto a hard rubber base at a rate of 120 drops per minute.

 The number of drops required to cause the soil to flow from both sides to
close the groove over a distance of 12.7 mm is recorded; a...
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-73568-9_44

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB

 Casagrande cup components

1.ASTM (2010) Standard test methods for liquid limit,

plastic limit, and plasticity index of soils. American
Society for Testing and Materials Test D4318-
10e1. http://www.astm.org/Standards/D4318.htm

2.Holtz RD, Kovacs WD (1981) An introduction to

geotechnical engineering. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
ISBN:0-13-484394-0

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB

 The liquid limit of soils can be measured using either the
cup apparatus developed by Casagrande or by the fall-
cone method, which is now the standard in much of Europe.

 This paper will demonstrate, based on a Newmarkian sliding

block analysis of the Casagrande percussion test, that these
two methods measure different mechanical properties of the
soil; the cup test being a measure of specific strength, i.e.,
strength divided by density, whereas the fall cone is a direct
measure of strength.

 Sources of error in the operation of the percussion test are

quantified and a modification to the fall-cone test is
proposed to standardize results between the two test
methods.

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB

SOIL, CONCRETE & ASPHALT LAB