Types of Soil

Three categories of soil: cohesionless,

cohesive and organic soils.
Cohesionless soil : the soil particle do not
tend to stick together.
Cohesive soils are characterized by very small
particle size where surface chemical effects
predominant. The particles do tend to stick
together-the result of water-particle
interaction and attractive force between
particles.

 Three common type of cohesionless soils are

gravel, sand and silt.
Cohesionless soils types

Sizes

Gravel

Greater than 2 mm

sand

0.1 mm to 2 mm

silt

0.005 to 0.1 mm

Both gravel and sand maybe further divided in

to fine (as fine sand) and coarse (as coarse
sand)

 Gravel and sand can be classified according to

particle size by sieve analysis.
The common type of cohesive soil is clay,
which has particle sizes less than about 0.005
mm.
Clayey soils cannot be separated by sieve
analysis in to size categories because no
practical sieve can be made with openings so
small; instead, particle sizes may be determine
by observing settling velocities of the particle
in a water mixture.

Engineering properties soils

Granular soils, except for loose sand, generally
possess excellent engineering properties:
Large bearing capacity
Small settlement
Make outstanding foundation material for
supporting roads and structure.
Make excellent backfill materials for retaining
wall because they are easily compacted and
easily drained, and because they exert small
lateral pressures.

 Cohesive soils (mostly clays, but also silty clays

and clay-sand mixtures with clay being
predominant) exhibit generally undesirable
engineering properties compared with those of
granular soils:
Lower shear strength.
They can be plastic and compressible, and they
expand when wetted and shrink when dry.
They develop large lateral pressure and low
permeability's.
Poor material for retaining wall backfill.

 Silty soils are on the border between clayey

and sandy soils. They are fine-grained like
clays but cohesionless like sand.
Silty soils possess undesirable engineering
properties :
High capillarity and susceptibility to frost
action, yet they have low permeability and
low densities.

 Any soils containing a sufficient amount of

organic matter to affect its engineering
properties is called organic soils.
Organic soils are typically spongy, crumbly,
and compressible. They posses low shear
strength and may contain harmful materials.
Organic soils are essentially unacceptable for
supporting foundation.

MACKINTOSH PROBE
Proba Mackintosh atau proba JKR adalah satu
kaedah yang telah diperkenalkan untuk
penyiasatan tanah di peringkat awal. Ianya
adalah satu kaedah yang paling murah dan
sering diguna pakai untuk tujuan penyiasatan
tapak.
Penentuan keupayang galas tanah(bearing
capacity of soils)

Rajah 1: Susunan umum proba JKR (a), penunjuk proba JKR

(b) dan penunjuk proba mackintosh (c).

Standard Penetration test

(ASTM D 1586)
Useful in determining certain properties of soils,
particularly of cohesionless soils, for which
undisturbed sample are not easily obtained.
623-N hammer falling 762 mm is used to drive
the split-spoon sampler 457 mm into the soil.
As a sample is driven the 457 mm into the soil,
the number of blow required to penetrate each
of the three 152-mm increments is recorded
separately.

 The SPT resistance value (or N-value) is

number of blow required to penetrate the last
305 mm.
Thus, the N-value represent the number of
blow per foot(305mm).

Method to correct-N-value
First Method (Peck et al, 1974)

Second Method Terzaghi et al, 1996 and Liao and Whitman

TYPICAL BORE LOG FOR A PROJECT IN

MALAYSIA

END