See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/245403642

Determination of Shrinkage Limit of Fine-Grained Soils by Wax Method

Article  in  Geotechnical Testing Journal · January 2009

DOI: 10.1520/GTJ101727

CITATIONS READS

13 9,991

6 authors, including:

K. Prakash A. Sridharan

62 PUBLICATIONS   961 CITATIONS   
Indian Institute of Science
265 PUBLICATIONS   4,531 CITATIONS   
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Acid Rain Intrusion Effects on Slope Failure Phenomena and Mechanisms View project

Soil Mechanics View project

All content following this page was uploaded by A. Sridharan on 12 January 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Geotechnical Testing Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1
Paper ID GTJ101727
Available online at: www.astm.org
TECHNICAL NOTE

K. Prakash,1 A. Sridharan,2 J. Ananth Baba,3 and H. K. Thejas3

Determination of Shrinkage Limit of Fine-Grained

Soils by Wax Method

ABSTRACT: Shrinkage limit of fine-grained soils is one of the parameters that is used for predicting the volume stability of soils in the field.
ASTM Standard D427-04 (2007) involves the use of mercury, a health hazardous substance. Many stringent precautionary safety and disposal
measures have to be exercised before its use in the laboratory. The present technical note presents the wax method of determining the shrinkage limit
of soil in the laboratory which does not require the use of mercury, and also to substantiate the method proposed by the ASTM standard. It involves
the use of wax as a coating on the dry soil pat and the water displacement method for the determination of the dry volume of soil pat. The experi-
mental results have shown that the values of shrinkage limit of soils determined by the wax method and by the mercury displacement method are
within certain statistical bounds.
KEYWORDS: fine-grained soil, hazardous substance, mercury displacement, shrinkage limit, wax coating

Introduction discussion on the experimental results obtained thereof4 It is also

Shrinkage limit is one of the three Atterberg limits and is also one
of the three characteristics limiting water content of fine-grained
soils (Terzaghi and Peck 1948; Sridharan and Prakash 1998). It is
the limiting water content of a soil mass below which any reduction
in water content of the soil mass will not cause any decrease in the
volume of the soil mass. It can be regarded as an index property
representing the volume stability of soil mass subjected to shrink-
age in the field.
Current practices of determining the shrinkage limit of a soil
involve the use of mercury, which is a hazardous substance (ASTM
Standard D427-04 2007; BS 1377: Part 2 1990; IS: 2720, Part 6
1972). Mercury absorbed through the skin, and prolonged inhala-
tion of mercury vapors may lead to serious health hazards (ASTM
Standard D427-04 2007; Holtz and Kovacs 1981). Avoiding these
mercury poisoning effects requires that stringent precautionary,
safety, and disposal measures be followed while using mercury in
the determination of shrinkage limit.
With the concern that mercury is a hazardous material, ASTM
Standard D4943-02 (2007) has offered an alternative to the mer-
cury displacement method of determining the shrinkage limit of
soils, which is called the wax method.
This technical note presents the research dealing with the deter-
mination of the shrinkage limit of a fine-grained soil by both mer-
cury displacement and wax methods. The wax method presented in
this note is very similar to the method suggested by ASTM Stan-
dard D4943-02 (2007) with slight procedural modifications and the
Manuscript received March 4, 2008; accepted for publication July 3, 2008;
published online September 2008.
1
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Sri Jayachamarajendra College
of Engineering, Mysore 570 006, India, e-mail: kprakash60@yahoo.com
2 the wet soil mass in the dish 共V兲.
Former Professor in Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Banga-
lore 560 012, India.
3 4
Former Undergraduate Students, Department of Civil Engineering, Sri Jaya-
chamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore 570 006, India.
similar to ASTM Standard C914-95 (2008).
Conventional Mercury Displacement Method
The conventional method of determining the shrinkage limit of
fine-grained soils involves three steps.
(i) The soil under study passing through a 425 µm sieve is
thoroughly mixed with distilled water so that the result-
ing water content of the paste is slightly more than the
liquid limit of the soil. The inside surface of the shrink-
age dish of known mass is coated with a thin layer of
silicon grease. It is filled with the soil paste in three lay-
ers, taking care to see that the entrapped air, if any, is
removed by tapping the dish on a firm surface which is
cushioned appropriately. After the dish is completely
filled with the soil paste and the excess soil paste is
struck off, the mass of the dish with the wet soil in it is
recorded. The soil mass in the dish is allowed to first air
dry, taking care to see that cracks are not formed and
then it is oven dried to a constant mass at 110° ± 5 ° C.
The mass of the dish with the dry soil pat is recorded.
With the help of the masses recorded during the test, the
initial water content of the soil 共w兲 is calculated.
(ii) The initial volume of the wet soil mass in the dish 共V兲,
which is nothing but the capacity of the dish itself, is
determined using mercury. The shrinkage dish is filled
with mercury, and the excess mercury is removed by
pressing a plain glass plate firmly over the top of the
dish. The mass of the mercury inside the shrinkage dish
divided by the unit mass of mercury gives the volume of
(iii) The volume of the dry soil pat 共Vd兲 is determined by the
This research was taken up to substantiate the wax method in response to the
call given by ASTM Standard D4943-02 (2007) in its introduction.

Copyright
Copyright by ASTM
© 2009 Int'l (all
by ASTM rights reserved);
International, Wed Harbor
100 Barr Aug 28 Drive,
02:02:51
POEDT
Box2013
C700, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959. 1
Downloaded/printed by
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering -Mysore pursuant to License Agreement. No further reproductions authorized.
2 GEOTECHNICAL TESTING JOURNAL

mercury displacement method. A glass cup is filled with TABLE 1—Properties of the soils studied.
mercury, and the excess mercury is removed by pressing
Soil Classification
a glass plate with three prongs firmly over the top of the
cup. This cup with the mercury is placed in an evaporat- Soil No. Liquid Limit Plastic Limit ASTMa BSb
ing dish. The dry soil pat is placed on the surface of the 1 60 30 CH CH
mercury in the glass cup. It is pressed into the mercury 2 69 29 CH CH
with the help of the glass plate with three prongs. The 3 107 44 ME ME
mass of the mercury displaced by the dry soil pat, which 4 114 45 CH CE
is collected in the evaporating dish, is recorded. This 5 133 46 CH CE
mass divided by the unit mass of mercury gives the vol- 6 242 54 CH CE
ume of the dry soil pat 共Vd兲. 7 362 44 CH CE
The shrinkage limit (SL) of the soil under study can then be a
ASTM Standard D2487 (2007).
calculated using Eq 1. b
BS: 5930 (1981).

冋 再
SL = w −
共V − Vd兲
md
␳w 冎册 100 (1)
solid wax of regular shape divided by its volume as calculated from
its dimensions gives its density.
It should be noted that the method discussed here is different
where: from the wax method suggested by ASTM Standard D4943-02
(2007) in the procedure adopted to determine the volume of dry soil
w = initial water content of the soil, fraction pat. ASTM Standard D4943-02 (2007) suggests the determination
md = mass of the dry soil pat, g of the masses of dry soil pat coated with wax, both in air and in a
V = volume of the wet soil mass in the dish water bath. Knowing these masses and the density of wax, one can
(=volume of the shrinkage dish), cm3 calculate the volume of dry soil pat.
Vd = volume of the dry soil pat, cm3
␳w = density of water, which is normally taken as
1 g / cm3 Experimental Results and Discussions
The greatest advantage of using mercury in determining
shrinkage limit is that the mercury exhibits a very high Two pure clay minerals, namely kaolinite and montmorillonite, and
intermolecular cohesion. With the result, it does not “wet” the soils obtained from the field of varying clay mineralogy were used
surface with which it comes in contact. This helps the dry soil pat to in this experimental study. Liquid limit of the soils varied from
be intact even when it is pressed into mercury while determining its about 59 to 362; plastic limit of the soil varied from about 29 to 54;
volume. shrinkage limit the soils varied from about 12 to 29 (Tables 1 and
2). Even though codes of practice specify a shrinkage dish of stan-
dard dimensions (i.e., 44 mm internal diameter and 12 mm inner
height), shrinkage dishes of different sizes were also used in this
Wax Method work.
Problems faced with mercury are two in number: The shrinkage limit tests were conducted as per the conventional
method (ASTM Standard D427-98 1999; BS 1377, Part 2 1990; IS:
• Mercury is a hazardous substance, which poses serious 2720, Part 6 1972) using mercury for determining the volume of
threats to health. the wet soil mass 共VHg兲 (i.e., the volume of the shrinkage dish) and
• The hazardous nature of mercury makes it not easily avail- the volume of dry soil pat 共VdHg兲. The shrinkage limits of different
able in the market. Stringent restrictions are imposed on its soil specimens were calculated using Eq 1.
sale. The volumes of the shrinkage dishes were also computed by
These difficulties can be overcome by: measuring their inner diameters and inner heights with slide cali-
(a) Measuring the capacity of the shrinkage dish slide calipers,
and TABLE 2—Comparison of shrinkage limits obtained from the mercury dis-
(b) Using water in place of mercury to determine the volume of placement method with those obtained from the wax method.
dry soil pat. Soil No. Batch 共SL兲Hg 共SL兲wax
The major limitation posed by water for its use to determine the A 26.0 28
dry volume of soil pat is due to its high intermolecular adhesive 1 B 26 26
property, which makes the water “wet” any surface with which it C 26 29
comes in contact. When water comes in contact with dry soil pat, it 2 ¯ 28 31
enters the soil voids and causes the soil particles to separate out. 3 ¯ 15 15
In order to overcome this difficulty, in the present investigation, A 16 13
a coating of wax on the surface of the dry soil pat is given before its 4 B 14 17
volume is determined by immersing it in water. This necessitates C 14 14
the density of the wax to be known beforehand. The density of the 5 A 17 17
wax can be known from the specifications provided by its manufac- B 17 19
turer. Even in the absence of such data, it can then be determined in 6 ¯ 16 18
the laboratory very easily by cutting the wax to a solid of regular 7 ¯ 13 12
shape whose dimensions and mass can be recorded. Mass of the

Copyright by ASTM Int'l (all rights reserved); Wed Aug 28 02:02:51 EDT 2013
Downloaded/printed by
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering -Mysore pursuant to License Agreement. No further reproductions authorized.
 PRAKASH ET AL. ON WAX METHOD OF DETERMINING SL 3

pers 共Vcal兲. It has been observed that, on an average,

& '()* , !4 5#5 '(-./
VHg = 0.999Vcal (2)
As seen from Eq 2, VHg and Vcal are almost the same. Hence, Vcal
%
itself is used as the volume of wet soil mass 共V兲 in the wax method.
The density of bee wax used in the present work was determined
in the laboratory, and it has a value of ␳wax = 0.9155 g / cm3. The $
wax was heated to attain the liquid state. The dry soil pats were
'()* , '(-./ 0123

#
'()*6 78
dipped into the liquid wax in order to have a thin coating of wax on
them. The masses of dry soil pats with the wax coating were re- #
corded.
Mass of wax coating = mwax = m共wax+dry soil pat兲 − md (3) "
The volume of the wax coating was then calculated as
mwax !
Vwax = (4)
␳wax
A glass cup was filled with distilled water, and the excess water
! " # $ % &
was removed by pressing a plain glass plate firmly over the top of
the cup. This cup with water was placed in a shallow pan. The dry #
soil pat coated with wax was inserted into this cup slowly. As the '(-./6 78
soil pat is heavier, it settled to the bottom of the cup, and the water
that was displaced by it was collected in the outer shallow pan. As FIG. 1—Comparison of dry volumes of soil pats obtained from the conventional
mercury displacement method and from the wax method.
water has more adhesion, all the displaced water would not come
out of the glass cup. Hence, it is required to press the plain glass
plate gently over the top of the glass cup and to move it over the top determining the shrinkage limit). Considering all of these facts, it
edge of the glass cup horizontally. This would force the water that can be concluded that the values of the shrinkage limit obtained
was in the cup over and above its top edge, sticking to it by virtue of from the wax method and the mercury displacement method are
its adhesion to spill out of the cup to get collected in the outer shal- within certain acceptable statistical bounds.
low pan. However, it should be kept in mind that this process also
could not completely remove all the water displaced by the dry soil
pat coated with wax. The mass of water collected in the shallow pan Proposed Method
divided by the unit mass of water gives the volume of the dry soil
pat and the wax coating. Then, the volume of the dry soil pat 共Vdwax兲 • Measure the inner diameter and inner height of the shrinkage
was calculated as: dish and hence, calculate the capacity of the dish, which is
nothing but the initial volume of the wet soil mass in the dish
Vdwax = V共dry soil pat+wax coating兲 − Vwax (5) 共V兲. Also record the mass of the empty shrinkage dish.
Figure 1 shows the comparison between VdHg and Vdwax. It • Mix the soil with distilled water to form a paste so that its
should be noted that they are not equal. Instead, Vdwax is less than initial water content is slightly above the liquid limit of the
VdHg. This may be due to the already indicated observation that the soil. Place the wet soil paste into the shrinkage dish, whose
entire water displaced by the wax-coated dry soil pat has not come
out into the shallow pan because of the adhesive property of water. #
The relationship between VdHg and Vdwax is given by the statistical
Eq 6.
VdHg = 1.0737Vdwax (6) "%

Equation 6 has a correlation coefficient of 0.9924. VdHg calculated

from Eq 6 can be used to calculate the shrinkage limit of the soil
()*+-./6 0

using Eq 1. "
Figure 2 and Table 2 show the comparison between the values of
the shrinkage limit of soils under study obtained from the conven-
tional mercury displacement method 共SLHg兲 and from the wax
coating method 共SLwax兲 as well. They indicate that the difference !%
between the values of shrinkage limit determined from the conven-
tional mercury displacement method and the wax coating method is
&
on the order of ±3.8 %. However, it should be noted that ASTM $%
!
Standard D427-04 (2007) and ASTM Standard D4943-02 (2007) ! !% " "% #
suggest the acceptable range of two results obtained from two prop- ()*+)*6 0
erly conducted tests of the same type, for a multi-laboratory deter-
mination, as 4.8 % (for the mercury displacement method of deter- FIG. 2—Comparison of shrinkage limits of soils obtained from the conventional
mining the shrinkage limit) and as 4.03 % (for the wax method of mercury displacement method and from the wax method.

Copyright by ASTM Int'l (all rights reserved); Wed Aug 28 02:02:51 EDT 2013
Downloaded/printed by
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering -Mysore pursuant to License Agreement. No further reproductions authorized.
4 GEOTECHNICAL TESTING JOURNAL
inner surface is coated with a thin layer of silicon grease, in
three layers, taking care to see that no air bubbles are in-
cluded inside the wet soil paste. After recording the mass of
the shrinkage dish with the wet soil mass, allow the soil paste
to air dry, taking care to see that no cracks have formed. After
its color changes, oven dry it to constant mass. Record the
mass of the shrinkage dish with dry soil pat. Calculate the
initial water content of the wet soil paste 共w兲.
• Determine the density of the wax to be used for coating the
dry soil pat 共␳wax兲.
• Heat the wax to liquid state. Immerse the dry soil pat care-
fully in the liquid wax to have a thin wax coating on it.
Record the mass of the wax-coated soil pat. Calculate the
mass of the wax coating and hence, its volume 共Vwax兲.
• Fill a glass cup completely with distilled water. Remove the
excess water by pressing a plain glass plate gently on the top
of the cup and by moving the plate over the top edge of the
cup horizontally.
• Keep the water-filled glass cup inside a shallow pan. Insert
the wax-coated dry soil pat into this cup slowly. Press the
plain glass plate over the top edge of the cup and move it
horizontally. Record the mass of water collected in the shal-
low pan that is displaced by the wax-coated dry soil pat. Cal-
culate the volume of the dry soil pat 共Vdwax兲.
• Calculate the equivalent volume of the dry soil pat obtained
by the mercury displacement method using Eq 6 (i.e., Vd
= VdHg).
• Calculate the shrinkage limit (SL) of the soil being tested
using Eq 1.
Conclusions
The present day practice to determine the shrinkage limit of soil
involves the use of mercury, which is a health hazardous substance.
To prevent its usage in the laboratory, the volume of the wet soil
mass can be determined by measuring the inner dimensions of the
shrinkage dish using slide calipers, and the volume of dry soil pat
can be determined by the water displacement method after coating
the dry soil pat with a thin layer of wax. The shrinkage limit of the
Copyright by ASTM Int'l (all rights reserved); Wed Aug 28 02:02:51 EDT 2013
Downloaded/printed by
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering -Mysore pursuant to License Agreement. No further reproductions authorized.
View publication stats
soil calculated from the wax method is within the acceptable statis-
tical bounds. The wax method of determining the shrinkage limit of
soil is simple and is free from mercury poisoning effects.
References
[1] ASTM Standard C914-95, (2008), “Standard Test Method for
Bulk Density and Volume of Solid Refractories by Wax Im-
mersion,” Annual Book of ASTM Standards, Vol. 04.02,
ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA.
[2] ASTM Standard D427-04, (2007), “Standard Test Method for
Shrinkage Factors of Soils by the Mercury Method,” Annual
Book of ASTM Standards, Vol. 04.02, ASTM International,
West Conshohocken, PA.
[3] ASTM Standard D4943-02, (2007), “Standard Test Method
for Shrinkage Factors of Soils by the Wax Method,” Annual
Book of ASTM Standards, Vol. 04.02, ASTM International,
West Conshohocken, PA.
[4] ASTM Standard D2487, (2007), “Standard Method for Clas-
sification of Soils for Engineering Purposes,” Annual Book of
ASTM Standards, Vol. 04.02, ASTM International, West Con-
shohocken, PA.
[5] BS: 1377-Part 2, (1990) “British Standard Methods of Test for
Soil for Engineering Purposes: Classification Tests,” BSI,
London.
[6] BS: 5930, (1981), “British Code of Practice for Site Investi-
gations,” BSI, London.
[7] Holtz, R. D. and Kovacs, W. D., (1981), An Introduction to
Geotechnical Engineering, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
NJ.
[8] IS: 2720-Part 6, (1972) “Indian Standard Methods of Test for
Soils: Determination of Shrinkage Factors,” Reaffirmed 1978,
BIS, New Delhi.
[9] Sridharan, A. and Prakash, K., (1998), “Characteristic Water
Contents of a Fine-Grained Soil–Water System,” Geotech-
nique, Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 337–346.
[10] Terzaghi, K. and Peck, R., (1948), Soil Mechanics in Engi-
neering Practice, Wiley and Sons, NY.