Testing Property of Soil of a Site - Essay Example

Statham’s Close field at the Blacken Hurst campus of Nottingham Trent University was visited to evaluate the characteristic of that location’s soil. Samples were collected and tested to achieve this objective.

Site location

The site is located around 13.5 miles away from the main administrative buildings. Elevation of the ground’s site was measured to lie between 52m and 64m as shown on MAP1. To ensure more control, a trial pit of 60cm X 60cm X 60cm was excavated with coordinates N 530 3.617 and W00 57.670. The day’s weather was very appealing as there was no rain, and this made the testing of the soil to be done with more ease. The terrain of the ground can be described as flat since there was no steepness observed. On the east side of the site, the walkway was present while buildings were not within the vicinity of the site as shown on the map.

Trial Pit Result

Before the excavation of the trial pit, the top soil was removed. The next step was to place all the layers of soil according to their extraction order. This was very important as the characteristics of the soil at different depths would be established. Tests such as the Moisture Probe test, the Mackintosh test, the shear vane test, and the permeability test were conducted to establish the properties of various strata. The results of these tests revealed that;

1. Moisture probe test

This test measures the Volumetric Moisture content w (vol) and Gravitational moisture content w (grav) and the result of the sample as shown in table 2.

2. Shear vane test

This test is aimed at measuring the ability of the soil to sustain the structural load. This test is essential for the purpose of putting up a building on the site. The test first measures the un-drained shear strength by planting a shear vane into the ground and measures the level of pressure at the point where the soil shears as shown in table 3.

3. The Mackintosh Dynamic probing

We settled for the mackintosh probe because it is portable due to the fact that it is hand-operated in addition it produces vivid and reliable results. The test used a 5 kg hammer to drive a number of connected 120cm-long steel rods into the ground at intervals of 100mm. The depth of the result was as in table 4. Reading from the table, it can be inferred that there is a distinct intensification in the number of blows between 400 and 500mm. The result affirms that the soil gets denser as the ones penetrate the ground.

4. In-situ permeability test

Permeability (k) is the ease with which water passes through the soil. It is measured in ms-1.cylinders of 100mm in diameter and 150mm in height are planted into the ground and filled with water. Measurements are then taken every minute of the water level as it decreases with time (flow rate). On the matters of reliability, the test is questionable as there might be some spillage that might have occurred during the experiment.

Conclusion: The various tests that were conducted confirmed that the shear strength of the soil was increasing the deeper we went and the Theta moisture of the soil was cohesive due to the high water content observed. (Significant water content is a common property of clay)