Soil as an engineering material

The term "soil" means different things to different people: To a geologist it

represents the products of past surface 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.

Soils may be described in different ways by different people for their different
purposes. Engineers' descriptions give engineering terms that will convey some
sense of a soil's current state and probable susceptibility to future changes (e.g.
in loading, drainage, structure, surface level).
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.
 
In the British Soil Classification System, soils are classified into named
Basic Soil Type groups according to size, and the groups further divided
into coarse, medium and fine sub-groups:

BOULDERS > 200 mm

Very coarse
soils COBBLES 60 - 200 mm
coarse 20 - 60 mm
G
medium 6 - 20 mm
GRAVEL
Coarse fine 2 - 6 mm
soils coarse 0.6 - 2.0 mm
S
medium 0.2 - 0.6 mm
SAND
fine 0.06 - 0.2 mm
coarse 0.02 - 0.06 mm
0.006 - 0.02
M medium
Fine mm
SILT
soils 0.002 - 0.006
fine
mm
C  CLAY < 0.002 mm
 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

Some clays contain particles size which behave as colloids, i.e. do not settle
in water due solely to gravity.
Water content
The most usual method of determining the water content of soil is to weigh a small
representative specimen, drying it to constant weight and then weighing it again.
Drying can be carried out using an electric oven set at 104-105° Celsius or using a
microwave oven.
Example:
A sample of soil was placed in a tin container and weighed, after which it was dried
in an oven and then weighed again. Calculate the water content of the soil.

Weight of tin empty = 16.16 g

Weight of tin + moist soil = 37.82 g
Weight of tin + dry soil = 34.68 g
Water content, w = (mass of water) / (mass of dry soil)
= (37.82 - 34.68) / (34.68 - 16.16)
= 0.169
= 16.9 %