BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity
BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity
(OP)
Evening all :)
Wondering if someone can help shed some light on describing coarse grained glacial material in accordance with BS5930. The material has 40% sand, 40% gravel, 17% silt and 3% clay. By my understanding the is classed as a coarse material (less than 35% fine fraction) and would be a silty SAND and GRAVEL.
BUT...an Atterbergs Limit test shows the material has a PI of 12 so has properties characteristic of a cohesive material. BS5930 says that the material is coarse if it contains less than 35% fines (silt and clay) but may be defined as a fine grained material if it has characteristics such as displaying a PI. After stating this it does not give any further explicit guidance that I can find.
So is this material then described as a slightly silty sandy gravelly CLAY OR is it a clayey SAND and GRAVEL (with the clayey description replacing silty as it displays a PI?
Confused!
Wondering if someone can help shed some light on describing coarse grained glacial material in accordance with BS5930. The material has 40% sand, 40% gravel, 17% silt and 3% clay. By my understanding the is classed as a coarse material (less than 35% fine fraction) and would be a silty SAND and GRAVEL.
BUT...an Atterbergs Limit test shows the material has a PI of 12 so has properties characteristic of a cohesive material. BS5930 says that the material is coarse if it contains less than 35% fines (silt and clay) but may be defined as a fine grained material if it has characteristics such as displaying a PI. After stating this it does not give any further explicit guidance that I can find.
So is this material then described as a slightly silty sandy gravelly CLAY OR is it a clayey SAND and GRAVEL (with the clayey description replacing silty as it displays a PI?
Confused!





RE: BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity
RE: BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity
What I would have used, from my practice, is "Sand and Gravel, some Silt, trace clay - TILL".
Hope this helps . . . and by the way, BS5930 uses a totally different set of Undrained shear strength values in kPa (kN/m2) for clayey soils compared to normal North American practice and as indicated in Terzaghi & Peck, and many others. Leads to difficulties from one country to another - for many overseas projects, one would need to know where the geotechnical engineer was from in order to determine what the terms mean.
BS Normal
Very soft 0 - 20 0 - 12.5
Soft 20 - 40 12.5 - 25
Firm 40 - 75 25 - 50
Stiff 75 - 150 50 - 100
Very Stiff 150 - 300 100 - 200
Hard > 300 >200
RE: BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity
Aren't we meant to be using the Eurocodes now anyway? ;oD
RE: BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity
RE: BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity
As for dividing the PI by 5 because the <425 only makes up 20% of the sample.....that sounds like "structural engineer's logic"!! (Tongue in cheek, before any SE's kick off).
RE: BS5930 description of coarse grained material that have low plasticity