SOIL BORING TEST

-Raniel T. Bautista
SOIL
is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that
together support life. Earth's body of soil, called the pedosphere, has four
important functions:

• as a medium for plant growth

• as a means of water storage, supply and purification
• as a modifier of Earth's atmosphere
• as a habitat for organisms
BORE
• to pierce with a turning or twisting movement of a tool
• to make by boring or digging away material
• a usually cylindrical hole made by or as if by the turning or
twisting movement of a tool : a hole made by or as if
boring
SOIL BORING TEST
• is a type of geologic engineering tests to
determine the capability of the soil or to
determine the strength and properties of
a required building foundation.
THREE MUSKETEERS IN SOILS TESTING:

• Atterberg
• Casagrande
• Terzaghi
 Albert Mauritz Atterberg
- a Swedish chemist and agricultural scientist

- invented a test that involves making “worms” out of soil

- Soil classifications
Arthur Casagrande
-was born in 1902 in Austria

- a secondary school in Vienna from which he earned

a degree in civil engineering in 1924

-a civil engineer and geologist who also hailed from

Austria.
 Karl von Terzaghi
-was born in 1883 in Prague

-He also happens to be the so-called “Father of Soil Mechanics.”

Terzaghi’s Principle:

Total Stress = Effective Stress + Pore Water Pressure

1. WHY DO I NEED MY SOIL TESTED?

2. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO DO A SOIL BORING

TEST
WHY DO I NEED MY SOIL TESTED?
Soil testing involves analyzing the chemical and geotechnical
qualities of your soil. The specific purposes for this testing include

• Identifying the types of soil on site

• Determining whether the soil can support your desired construction project
• Testing the soil for strength, organic material, density, compaction and
contamination, among other things
• Creating technical and safety reports, which are often required to get building
permits
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO DO A SOIL BORING TEST

• Soil testing performed after digging a foundation will

cost on average $300 to $1,000. Soil testing performed before
digging begins is much more complicated and therefore expensive.
You should budget around $3,000 to $5,000 or more for pre-
digging soil analysis.
BORING METHODS FOR SOIL SAMPLING:

• Auger boring
• Rotary Drilling
• Wash boring
• Percussion Drilling
AUGER BORING

• It is a simple and cost-effective boring technique which

can be used for almost all types of soil apart from gravelly
soil and rocks. This technique encounters difficulty in
gravelly soil and special drilling bits are needed for rocks.
• Auger boring is used to collect disturbed soil specimen. It
collects the soil sample from a maximum practical depth
of nearly 35m based on the available time and equipment
type.
ROTARY DRILLING
• is suitable for all types of soil including
rocks. It is used to take disturbed as
well as undisturbed soil sample. So, it
is specifically applicable for stiff soil
layers. The practical depth of sampling
is around 70m and greater depth
based on the type of utilized
equipment. Generally, thin-walled
tube samplers and various piston
samplers are used to collect
undisturbed soil specimen. The
diameter of the undisturbed soil
sample is around 100 mm and ranges
from 150mm to 200mm for rocks.
WASH BORING
• Wash boring method is used to collect
disturbed and undisturbed samples in
almost all types of soils except rocks.
In this technique, portable, cheap, and
limited equipment is used which is an
advantage of wash boring. Similar to
rotary drilling, thin-walled tube
samplers and piston samplers are
used to recover undisturbed soil
samples with minimum 50 mm
diameter and maximum 100 mm
diameter.
PERCUSSION DRILLING
• It is used for all types of soils and
rocks including stiff soils and rocks.
Percussion drilling is used to take
disturbed and undisturbed specimen
but the quality of undisturbed
samples is not that good because of
the heavy blows of the chisel. Similar
to rotary drilling and wash boring,
the soil specimen can be taken from
a depth of 70m and more based on
the utilized equipment. The diameter
of disturbed soil samples is about
100 mm and greater, and obtaining
smaller diameter samples would be
uneconomical.