GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING LAB

a fluid continuously deforms when under the action of shear. This is different to a solid: a solid has a single value of  for each value of  . So the longer a shear stress is applied to a fluid, the more shear strain occurs. However, what is known from experiments is that the rate of shear strain (shear strain per unit time) is related to the shear stress:

known as natural water content or natural moisture content, is the ratio of the weight of water to the weight of the solids in a given mass of soil.

Knowing the specific gravity of soils helps engineers understand how porous the soil is or how many voids it contains.

Sieve analysis determines the particle size distribution of a given soil sample and hence helps in easy identification of a soil's mechanical properties.

The Atterberg limits are a basic measure of the critical water contents of a fine-grained soil: its shrinkage limit, plastic limit, and liquid limit.

permeability test is to determine the coefficient of permeability (K) of a sample.

The Proctor compaction test is a laboratory method of experimentally determining the optimal moisture content.

A triaxial shear test is a common method to measure the mechanical properties of many deformable solids, especially soil

Geo-technical Engineering Labs Summary