California Bearing Ratio Test (CBR)

Aim
To determine the load bearing capacity of soil.
Apparatus for Compaction and CBR
 Moulds 2250cm3 capacity with base plate, stay rod and wing nut
 Collar
 Spacer Disc
 Metal hammer
 Perforated plates
 Loading machine
 Penetration plunger
 Dial gauge
 Dish and Shovel

PROCEDURE
 Take representative sample of soil weighing approximately 7kg and mix thoroughly at
optimum moisture content.
 Record the empty weight of the mould with base plate, with extension collar removed
(m1).
 Replace the extension collar of the mould.
 Insert a spacer disc over the base plate and place a coarse filter paper on the top of the
spacer disc.
 Place the mould on a solid base such as a concrete floor or plinth and compact the wet
soil in to the mould in five layers of approximately equal mass each layer being given 60
blows with 2.5kg hammer equally distributed and dropped from a height of 450 mm
above the soil.
 The amount of soil used shall be sufficient to fill the mould, leaving not more than about
6mm to be struck off when the extension collar is removed.
 Remove the extension collar and carefully level the compacted soil to the top of the
mould by means of a straight edge.
 Remove the spacer disc by inverting the mould and weigh the mould with compacted soil
(m2).
 Place a filter paper between the base plate and the inverted mould.
 Replace the extension collar of the mould.
 Prepare two more specimens in the same procedure as described above.
 TEST RESULTS

MOULD NUMBER 11 3 1 4
MASS OF MOULD (g)
4604 4492 4106 4429
MASS OF MOULD +WET SAMPLE (g)
8957 8725 8416 8634
MASS OF WET SAMPLE/BULK MASS (g)
4353 4233 4310 4205
-3
WET/BULK DENSITY (kgm ) 1935 1881 1916 1868
TARE NUMBER W 53 8 X
MASS OF EMPTY TARE (g)
280 284 286 287
MASS OF TARE + WET SAMPLE (g)
680 684 686 687
MASS OF TARE + DRY SOIL (g)
604 613 607 606
MASS OF DRY SAMPLE(g) 324 329 321 319
MASS OF WATER (g)
76 71 79 81
MOISTURE CONTENT MC (%)
23.5 21.6 24.6 25.4
WATER ADDED(ml)
1600 1500 1700 1800
DRY DENSITY (kgm-3)
1567 1547 1538 1490

DRY DENSITY
1580

1560

1540
Dry density kg/m3

1520

1500

1480

1460

1440
21 21.5 22 22.5 23 23.5 24 24.5 25 25.5 26
Moisture Content %

The Maximum dry density is 1567kg/m3 which corresponds to 23.35% moisture content. The
dry density increased as the moisture content increased up to an optimum value of moisture
content of 23.5%.
SOURCES OF ERROR
 Non-uniform distribution of the blows over the soil layers.
 The widths of the layers of soil where not equal, therefore there were variations in density
within each mould.
 Compacted material can be lost when the base plate is being removed thereby reducing
bulk density.
 Parallax errors when reading the scale for recording mass and even some systematic
errors of balances used for mass determination
 Therefore, the values may vary from standard values for the given sample due to errors
incurred during the experimental procedure. Improvements

NOTE: More accurate result could be obtained if the manually compacting hammer was
replaced with a mechanical one, besides the development of a rigid, well-fixed bench to ram
the sample over, in order to avoid loss of compaction energy

PENETRATION TEST
California bearing ratio is the ratio of force per unit area required to penetrate in to a soil
mass with a circular plunger of 50mm diameter at the rate of 1.25mm / min.
 The separate moulds were then soaked in the curing bath for 24hrs, after the 24 hours of
soaking the specimen is removed from the curing bath and remove the extension collar,
perforated disc, surcharge weights and filter paper.
 To prevent upheaval of soil in to the hole of surcharge weights, place 2.5kg annular
weights on the soil surface prior to seating the penetration plunger after which place the
reminder of the surcharge weights.

PROCEDURE FOR PENETRATION

 Place the mould on the lower plate of the testing machine with top face exposed
 Set the plunger under a load of 4 kg so that full contact is established between the surface
of the specimen and the plunger.
 Set the stress and strain gauges to zero.
 Consider the initial load applied to the plunger as the zero load.
 Apply the load at the rate of 1.25 mm / min.
 Take the readings of the load at penetration of 0;0.5; 1.0; 1.5; 2.0; 2.5;3.0; 4; 5;7.5; 10
and 12.5.
 Raise the plunger and detach the mould from the loading equipment.
 Collect the sample of about 20 to 50gms of soil from the top 30mm layer of specimen and
determine the water content
 Examine the specimen carefully after the test is completed for the presence of any
oversize soil particles, which are likely to affect the results if they happen to be located
directly below the penetration plunger.
SOURCES OF ERROR
1. Ramming the soil on the mold over a non rigid pan, this caused dissipation of
compaction energy.
2. The used air dried sample wasn’t cured before the test

3. Sample may not have been mixed well before taking sample for moisture content
determination.
4. Hammer was not dropped with an equal distribution over the sample
5. Non uniform soil and presence of stones distorts CBR values.

CBR TEST RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

 Load = gauge reading × 23
load
 % CBR at 2.5mm = ×100
13250
load
 % CBR at 5 mm = ×100
20000

Mould 3 Mould 11 Mould 1 Mould 4

Penetration Gauge Load % Gauge Load % Gauge Load % Gauge Load %
(mm) reading /N CBR reading /N CBR reading /N CBR reading /N CBR
0,5 10 230 4 92 1 23 2 46
1 24 552 12 276 2 46 5 115
1.5 38 874 22 506 7 161 8 184
2 48 1104 32 736 13 299 12 276
2.5 57 1311 9.89 42 966 7.29 20 460 3.47 15 345 2.60
3 63 1449 51 1173 27 621 18 414
4 73 1679 64 1472 39 897 23 529
5 81 1863 9.32 74 1702 8.51 49 1127 5.64 28 644 3.22
7.5 95 2185 91 2093 64 1472 38 874
10 105 2415 103 2369 75 1725 45 1035
12.5 114 2622 113 2599 83 1909 52 1196
 LOAD VS PENETRATION CHART
3000

2500

2000
Mould 11
LOAD (N)

Mould 1
1500
Mould 4
Mould 3
1000

500

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
PENETRATION (mm)

TARE NUMBER E F 7 12
TARE MASS(g) 280 271 277 278
TARE + WET SAMPLE (g) 680 671 677 678
TARE+DRY SAMPLE(g) 593 582 586 584
MASS OF DRY SAMPLE(g) 313 311 309 306
MASS OF WATER(g) 87 89 91 94
MOISTURE CONTENT AFTER
SOAK% 27.80 28.62 29.45 30.72
CBR% 8.51 9.89 5.64 3.22
 CBR% GRAPH
12

10

8
CBR %

0
27.50 28.00 28.50 29.00 29.50 30.00 30.50 31.00
Moisture Content after soak

CONCLUSION
The optimum moisture content is 28.62% from and the design CBR corresponding to that Mc
is 9.89% from the CBR Vs moisture content graph above.

REFERENCES

R.f.Craig, 2004. Graig's soil mechanics. 7th ed. London: spon press

SAZ 185, 1998. Methods of Testing Soils for Civil Engineering Purposes, Part 1:
Preparation, Classification and Density of Soils. s.l.:Standards Association of Zimbabwe.
SAZ 185, 2001. Methods of Testing Soils for Civil Engineering Purposes, Part 2: Strength
Tests. s.l.:Standards Association of Zimbabwe.