The Formation and Composition of Soil: Definition and Factors Video

https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-formation-and-composition-of-soil-definition-and-factors.html

Soil Characteristics & Development Video

https://study.com/academy/lesson/soil-characteristics-development.html

What is Soil? - Definition, Structure & Types Video

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-soil-definition-structure-types.html

Basic characteristics of soils

Soils consist of grains (mineral grains, rock fragments, etc.) with water and air in the
voids between grains.
The water and air contents are readily changed by changes in conditions and location.
Soils can be perfectly dry (have no water content) or be fully saturated (have no air
content) or be partly saturated (with both air and water present).
The size and shape of the solid (granular) content rarely changes at a given point, they
can vary considerably from point to point.
It consider soil as an engineering material - it is not a coherent solid material like steel
and concrete, but is a particulate material.
 important to understand the significance of particle size, shape and composition, and of a
soil's internal structure or fabric.

Soil as an engineering material

 To a geologist it represents the products of past surface processes.

 To a pedologist it represents currently occurring physical and chemical processes.
 To an engineer it is a material that can be:
 built on: foundations to buildings, bridges.
 built in: tunnels, culverts, basements.
 built with: roads, runways, embankments, dams.
 supported: retaining walls, quays.
 Engineers are primarily interested in a soil's mechanical properties:
 strength, stiffness, permeability. These depend primarily on the nature of the soil
grains, the current stress, the water content and unit weight.

Size range of grains

➡ The range of particle sizes encountered in soil is very large: from boulders with a
controlling dimension of over 200mm down to clay particles less than 0.002mm
(2mm).
➡ Some clays contain particles less than 1 mm in size which behave as colloids, i.e. do
not settle in water due solely to gravity.

➡ A handful of soil rubbed through the fingers can yield the following:
 SAND (and coarser) particles are visible to the naked eye.
  SILT particles become dusty when dry and are easily brushed off hands and
boots.
 CLAY particles are greasy and sticky when wet and hard when dry, and have to
be scraped or washed off hands and boots.

Shape of grains

➡ SANDS include gravelly sands and gravel-sands.

 Sand grains are generally broken rock particles that have been formed by physical
weathering, or they are the resistant components of rocks broken down by chemical
weathering.
 Sand grains generally have a rotund shape.
➡ CLAYS include silty clays and clay-silts; there are few pure silts (e.g. areas formed by
windblown Löess).
 Clay grains are usually the product of chemical weathering or rocks and soils.
 Clay particles have a flaky shape.

Shape characteristics of SAND grains

Rounded: Water- or air-worn; transported sediments

Irregular: Irregular shape with round edges; glacial sediments (sometimes sub-divided into 'sub-
rounded' and 'sub-angular')

Angular: Flat faces and sharp edges; residual soils, grits

Flaky: Thickness small compared to length/breadth; clays

 Elongated: Length larger than breadth/thickness; scree, broken flagstone

Flaky & Elongated: Length>Breadth>Thickness; broken schists and slates

Shape characteristics of CLAY grains

 CLAY particles are flaky.

  Thickness is very small relative to their length & breadth, in some cases as thin as
1/100th of the length.
 Have high to very high specific surface values.
 These surfaces carry a small negative electrical charge, that will attract the positive end
of water molecules.
 Charge depends on the soil mineral and may be affected by an electrolyte in the pore
water.
 Causes some additional forces between the soil grains which are proportional to the
specific surface.
 A lot of water may be held as adsorbed water within a clay mass.

Consistency limits and plasticity

➡ Consistency varies with the water content of the soil.

➡ The consistency of a soil can range from (dry) solid to semi-
solid to plastic to liquid (wet).
➡ The water contents at which the consistency changes from one state to the next are
called consistency limits (or Atterberg limits).
 ➡ Two of these are utilised in the classification of fine soils:
Liquid limit (wL) - change of consistency from plastic to liquid
Plastic limit (wP) - change of consistency from brittle/crumbly to plastic

Plasticity index

➡ The consistency of most soils in the ground will be plastic or semi-solid.

➡ Soil strength and stiffness behavior are related to the range of plastic consistency.
➡ The range of water content over which a soil has a plastic consistency is termed the
Plasticity Index (IP or PI).

IP = liquid limit - plastic limit

= WL- WP
Liquidity index

In fine soils, especially clays, the current state is dependent on the water content with
respect to the consistency limits (or Atterberg limits). The liquidity index (IL or
LI) provides a quantitative measure of the current state:

Where:
WP = plastic limit and
WL = liquid limit
Significant values of IL indicating the consistency of the soil are:
IL < 0 Þ semi-plastic solid or solid
0 < IL < 1 Þ plastic
1 < IL Þ liquid