IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF

PROBLEMATIC SOILS

Presented by
Kulbir Singh Gill
Associate Professor, Deptt. of Civil Engineering,
GNDEC,Ludhiana
(kulbirgillkulbir@yahoo.co.in)
 FORMATION OF SOIL
 Soil is formed either by physical weathering or by chemical
weathering.
 Because of different processes of weathering ,soils exhibit different
characteristics.
 Physical weathered rock to some extent represents the parent rock mass
,for instance sand and gravel.
 Where as chemically weathered rocks results in the formation totally
different material such as clay.
 Needless to say that sands and gravels are considered to be the best
material from civil engineering point of view.
 Except the situation where permeability is to be controlled.
 Clays shows huge volume change when exposed to moisture.
 CONTD….
 Soils are heterogenious in nature.

 Soils are also anisotropic.

 If the wind is the weathering agent ,it results in aeoline deposits which are cohesion less
in nature such as sands.

 If water is the agent for movement of weathered rock products, it results in the formation
of alluvial deposit and their suitability as construction material is varying from poor to fair.

 Other deposit are glacial, marine , beach, etc. Residual deposits are the one which is not
transported to farther distances.

 Suitability of any soil can be assessed based on its properties.

 PROPERTIES OF SOILS
 The soil properties include index and engineering properties.

 The index properties are specific gravity, void ratio , liquid limit, plastic
limit, shrinkage limit, relative density, dry density, porosity, initial water
content, grains size distribution etc.

 The engineering properties are shear strength, compressibility and

permeability.

 Unlike other material, soil behavior is influenced by many factors such as

mineralogy, water content, void ratio, soil structure, pore fluid
characteristics (Ion concentration , valancy of ion , dielectric constant) ,
temperature, drainage, condition, strain rate, aging etc
IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF
SOILS
 Beside the complexity of understanding soil, geotechnical engineers made
their best efforts to group the soil based on its specific response to different
environmental conditions

 Soil can be classified as highly compressible and soil of low

compressibility, expansive & non expansive, sensitive & insensitive, high
plastic & low plastic, very soft to stiff clay, loose and dense sand etc.

 In this note, the identification and classification of different soils are

presented in order to classify the good and poor soil, otherwise called as
Problematic soil.
 LIQUID LIMIT
Liquid limit values of soils may be described as low, intermediate, high
very high or extra high plasticity as given below in Table .

Plasticity Classified as Liquid limit (%)

Low 20 to 35
Intermediate 35 to 50
High 50 to 70
Very high 70 to 90
Extra high Over 90
 PLASTICITY INDEX
 No uniform standard is adopted in classifying degree of plasticity of soils.
However, the classification given below is approximately the one which is
often used and hence is recommended

Soil classified as Plasticity Index (%)

Non – Plastic 0-5

Moderately Plastic 5-16

Plastic 16-35

Highly plastic Over 35

 SHRINKAGE LIMIT
 Shrinkage limit of soil is an indication of not only the shrinkage potential
of clays but also an indicative of swelling nature.
 Swelling and Shrinkage Classification based on Shrinkage Limit

Classified as Shrinkage table / Shrinkage limit

Swelling detail (%)
Very Low <1
Low 8 to 10
Intermediate 11 to 15
High 16 to 20
Very high Over 20
INDIAN STANDARD CLASSIFICATION
SYSTEM
 The fine-grained soils in ISC system are subdivided into three categories of
low, medium and high compressibility .

 Coarse-grained soils, when 50% or more of the total material by weight is

retained on 75 micron IS sieve.

 Fine-grained soils, when more than 50% of the total material passes 75
micron IS sieve.

 If the soil is highly organic and contains a large percentage of organic

matter and particles of decomposed vegetation, it is kept in a separate
category marked as peat (Pt).
 MAJOR SOIL GROUPS

Cohesive Granular soils or

soils Cohesionless soils

Clay Silt Sand Gravel Cobble Boulder

0.002 0.075 2.36 63 200

Grain size (mm)

Fine grain Coarse grain

soils soils
10
 100

80
% Passing hydrometer sieve

60
fines sands gravels

40

D10 = 0.013 mm
20
D
30
D30 = 0.47 mm
D60 = 7.4 mm
0
0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100

Grain size (mm)

GRAIN SIZE DISTRIBUTION CURVE

 Can find % of gravels, sands, fines

 Define D10, D30, D60.. as above.
CLASSIFYING FINES

Purely based on LL and PI

Intermediate plasticity
60 Low High
plasticity plasticity
)
Liquid Limit

ne 2 0
40
-Li L-
Clays A 3(L
0 .7
=
PI
20 Silts

0
0 20 50 100
35
Liquid Limit
12
 ATTERBERG LIMITS

Border line water contents, separating the

different states of a fine grained soil

water content
0 Shrinkage Plastic Liquid
limit limit limit

brittle-solid semi-solid plastic liquid

13
FIELD IDENTIFICATION OF SOILS
 The soils can be identified in the field by conducting the following simple
tests.

 The sample is first spread on a flat surface.

 If more than 50% of the particles are visible to the naked eye (unaided
eye), the soil is coarse-grained; otherwise, it is fine grained
 CONTD.
 To differentiate fine sand from silt, dispersion test is adopted. When a
spoonful of soil is poured in a jar full of water, fine sand settles in a minute
or so, whereas silt takes 15 minutes or more.

 Dilatancy (reaction to shaking) test.

 Toughness test.

 Dry strength test.

 These tests helps in classifying the different types of soil.

 CLASSIFICATION BASED ON FIELD TESTS

Test ML CL OL MI CI OI MH CH OH

Dilatanc Quick None to Slow Quick to None Slow Slow to None None to
y very slow slow none very slow

Toughnes None Medium Low None Medium Low Low to High Low to
s medium medium

Dry None of Medium Low Low Medium Low to Low to High to Medium to
Strengt low to high medium medium very high high
h
 GENERAL BEHAVIOR OF GRAVELS
Soil Group Permeability Compressibility Shear Strength Workability
\

Pervious
GW
Negligible Excellent Excellent
Very pervious
GP
Good Good
GM Negligible
Semi-pervious to
GC impervious Good Good
Negligible
Impervious
Good to fair Good
Very low
 GENERAL BEHAVIOR OF SAND

Soil Group Permeability Compressibility Shear Strength Workability

SW Pervious Negligible Excellent Excellent

SP Pervious Very low Good Fair

SM Semi-pervious to Low Good Fair

impervious

SC Impervious Low Good to fair Good

GENERAL BEHAVIOR OF SILT AND CLAY OF
MEDIUM PLASTICITY

Soil Group Permeability Compressibility Shear Strength Workability

Medium
Semi-pervious to impervious Fair
Fair
ML, MI

Fair Good to fair

Impervious Medium
CL, CI

Fair
Semi-pervious to impervious Medium
Fair
OL, OI
GENERAL BEHAVIOR OF SILTS AND CLAYS OF
HIGH PLASTICITY

Soil Group Permeability Compressibility Shear Strength Workability

MH Semi-pervious to High
impervious Fair to poor

High Poor

CH Impervious
Poor Poor

Impervious High Poor Poor

OH
CLASSIFICATION OF EXPANSIVE SOILS
 Damages to structures, property and life resulting from swell-shrink
characteristics of expansive soils have been reported from many parts of
the world including India.

 India, Africa, Australia, Israel, South America and United States of

America possess vast tracts covered with such soils.

 Our Black Cotton soil is an expansive soil.

 It extends nearly one-fifth of our country, chiefly in the states of Tamil

Nadu. Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Southern Uttar Pradesh,
Eastern Rajasthan, Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh
 CONTD.
 Most of the expansive soils found in India are black in color and
are good for growing cotton.

 Some of these soils are reddish brown and yellowish grey in color.

 These soils are generally found near the surface, with layer
thickness varying from 0.5 m to 10.m, and sometime more than 10
meters.
 CONTD.

 Once an expansive soil is encountered at the project site, the following

items need to be given specific attention.
 Swell – shrink characteristics of soil encountered.
 Thickness and depth of various underlying soil layers
 Depths of significant moisture variation.
 Local climate and hydrology.
 Floor-foundation system; ability to accommodate and tolerate the soil
behavior.
 Methods of improving the soil behavior
CHECKLIST FOR RECOGNITION OF EXPANSIVE
SOIL
S.No Item to be checked Answers
Yes No
1 Are the soils near by the project area known to be
expansive?

2 Are the evidences of cracks in walls, curb,

sidewalks and pavements etc. in nearby
construction?
3 Are there shrinkage cracks in the soils in dry
season?

4 Does the soil behaves very sticky and sticking to

the shoes?

5 If you take a lump of dry soil and try to break it

between the fingers, do you find the soil hard and
difficult to break.
 IDENTIFICATION OF EXPANSIVE SOILS
S.No Degree of expansion Liquid limit Shrinkage limit Plasticity index
(%) (%) (%)

1 Very high 60-70 >30 >35

High 40-60 20-30 20-35
2 Medium 30-40 10-20 10-20
3
4 Low 20-30 <10 <10
IDENTIFICATION OF EXPANSIVE SOIL ON THE
BASIS OF GSD
S.No Degree of expansion Clay fraction Colloidal content
(%) (%)

1 Very high >28 >28

2 High 20-28 20-28

3 Medium 12-20 15-20

4 Low 0-12 <15

 SENSITIVITY OF CLAYS
 Some clays have a curious property called sensitivity, which means their
strength in a remolded or highly disturbed condition is less than that in an
undisturbed condition at the same moisture content.

 These highly sensitive clays are called quick clays, are found in certain
areas of Eastern Canada, parts of Scandinavia, and else where.

 This behavior occurs because these clays have a very delicate structure that
is disturbed when they are remolded.

 The degree of sensitivity is defined by the parameter S 1, the ratio of

undisturbed shear strength to the remolded shear strength
CLASSIFICATION OF SENSITIVE SOILS

Classification Sensitivity, S1

Low sensitivity 2-4

Medium sensitivity 4-8

High sensitivity 8-16

Quick >16
CLASSIFICATION OF SOILS ON THE BASIS OF IN
SITU TESTS
Correlation between N and Denseness of Sand

N Denseness 

0-4 Very Loose 25° - 32°

4-10 Loose 27° - 35°

10-30 Medium 30° - 40°

30-50 Dense 35° = 45°

> 50 Very Dense > 45°

 CONTD.
Correlation between N and qu

N Consistency qu (kN / m2)

0-2 Very Soft < 25

2-4 Soft 25 – 50

4-8 Medium 50 – 100

8 - 15 Stiff 100 – 200

15 – 30 Very Stiff 200 – 400

> 30 Hard > 400

IDENTIFICATION OF DISPERSIVE
SOILS
 Dispersion occurs in soils when the repulsive forces between clay
particles exceed the attractive forces thus bringing about deflocculating
so that in the presence of relatively pure water the particles repel each
other to form colloidal suspensions.

 Dispersive soils have a moderate to high clay material content but there
are no significant differences in the clay fractions of dispersive and
non-dispersive soils, except that soils with less than 10% clay particles
may not have enough colloids to support dispersive piping.

 Dispersive soils contain a higher content of dissolved sodium (up to

12%) in their pore water than ordinary soils.
 CONTD.
 The sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) is used to quantify the role of
sodium where free salts are present in the pore water and is defined
as:
 SAR= Na/ 0.5(Ca+Mg ) with units expressed in meq/litre of the
saturated extract.

 . Gerber and Harmse (1987) considered an SAR value greater than

10 indicative of dispersive soils, between 6 and 10 as intermediate,
and less than 6 as non-dispersive.
 CONTD.
 The presence of exchangeable sodium is the main chemical factor
contributing towards dispersive behavior in soil.

 This is expressed in terms of the exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP):

 ESP= Exchangeable sodium x 100/cation exchange capacity.

 Where the units are given in meq/100 g of-dry clay.

 CONTD.
 Soils with ESP values above 15% are highly dispersive (Bell and Maud,
1994). Those with low cation exchange values (15 meq/100 g of clay) have
been found to be completely non- dispersive at ESP values of 6% or below.

 Unfortunately, dispersive soils cannot be differentiated from non-dispersive

soils by routine soil mechanics testing.

 Although a number of special tests have been used to recognize dispersive

soils, no single test can be relied on completely to identify them (Bell and
Maud, 1994). These can be divided into physical and chemical tests. The
former include the crumb test, the dispersion or double hydrometer test, the
modified hydrometer or turbidity ratio test and the pinhole test.
 CONTD.
 Serious piping damage to embankments and failures of earth dams have
occurred when dispersive soils have been used in their construction (Bell
and Maud, 1 994).

 Severe erosion damage also can form deep gullies on earth embankments
after rainfall.

 In many areas where dispersive soils are found there is no economical

alternative other than to use these soils for the construction of earth dams.
However, experience indicates that if an earth dam is built with careful
construction control and incorporates filters, then it should be safe enough
even if it is constructed with dispersive soils.
 COLLAPSIBLE SOIL
 Collapsible soils, which are sometimes referred to as metastable soils, are
unsaturated soils that undergo a large volume change upon saturation.
 This volume change may or may not be the result of the application of
additional load.
 Foundations that are constructed on such soils may undergo large and
sudden settlement if and when the soil under them becomes saturated with
an unanticipated supply of moisture.
 This moisture may come from several sources, such as (a) broken water
pipelines, (b) leaky sewers, (c) drainage from reservoirs and swimming
pools, (d) slow increase of groundwater, and so on.
 This type of settlement generally causes considerable structural damage.
Hence identification of collapsing soils during field exploration is crucial.
 CONTD.
 The majority of naturally occurring collapsing soils are aeolin that is,
wind- deposited sand and/or silts, such as loess, aeolic beaches, and
volcanic dust deposits.

 These deposits have high void ratios and low unit weights and are
cohesionless or only slightly cohesive.

 Loess deposits have silt-sized particles. The cohesion in loess may be the
result of the presence of clay coatings around the silt-size particles, which
holds them in a rather stable condition in an unsaturated state.

 In the United States, large parts of the Midwest and arid West have such
types of deposit. Loess deposits are also found over 1 5%-20% of Europe
and over large parts of China
 RELATION OF COLLAPSE POTENTIAL TO THE
SEVERITY OF FOUNDATION PROBLEMS

Cp(%) Severity of problem

0-1 No Trouble

1-5 Moderate Trouble

5-10 Trouble

10-20 Severe Trouble

>20 Very Severe Trouble

 SUMMARY
 Stability of any civil engineering structures lies primarily with the response
of soil under the influence of external loading.

 It is a must for any civil engineer to understand the type of soil and their
engineering characteristics prior to the use of same for any applications.

 If there is no proper importance given to the soil before start of

construction activities in the beginning itself, then the rectification of
damage to the structure, because of soil movement, if any would be much
higher than the cost of the project itself.
THANKS