A Comparative Study for Determining the Liquid Limit of Soils by Using the B.S. Cone Penetrometer and Casagrande Methods.

Document Type : Research Studies

Author

Civil Engineering Department., Faculty of Engineering., El-Mansoura University., Mansoura., Egypt.

Abstract

The liquid limit is widely used for the classification of soils. This limit has been correlated with many engineering properties of soils such as shear strength, consolidation, swelling potential, and permeability. These correlations could be rationalized if the liquid limit is accurately determined.
Casagrande method is commonly used and standardized worldwide for determining liquid limit of soils. The cone penetrometer is the British standard preferred method for determining this limit. The cone method has not been adopted yet by any of the American standards but it is recently adopted in the Egyptian code (1992). In this study, the liquid limit tests using the two methods were carried out on (50) soil samples of different types. The soils were brought from different areas in Egypt and U.S.A. The results obtained by the classic and most widely used Casagrande method. It was noted that the Correlation coefficient was very high and a linear relationship was obtained. It is concluded that the B.S. cone penetrometer test is a preferred over Casagrande method.

Main Subjects