Effect of Determination Method on the Liquid Limit of Quaternary Soils

Abstract

The design process in geotechnical engineering has been vastly affected by Atterberg limits. There are wide variances in the results of liquid limit(LL)determined by different methods. It thought that the procedure used in the test is the primary source of these variances. The research reported in this paper was carried out to find the extent of the proper variance caused by the procedure used to determine the LL of quaternary soils. The effect of this variance on soil classification and activity (A) were included thoroughly. The LL was determined by six methods. They are the Casagrande hard-base and soft-base devices (multi-point and one-point method, and multi-point and one-point cone penetrometer methods. It was found that the index properties obtained from hard-base Casagrande device are differed significantly when compared with other methods. The variance noted was great enough to change LL and change the classification of soil from CL to CH and cause an error in computing A.