SOIL CLASSIFICATIONS Purpose of soil classification The purpose of soil classification is to arrange various types of soils into specific

groups based on physical properties and engineering behaviour of soils with the objective of finding the suitability of soils for different engineering applications, such as in the construction of earth dams, highways, and foundations of buildings, etc. Unified soil classification system (USC) Indian soil classification system (ISC) AASHTO Soil classification system (American Association of State highway and Transport Officials) /HRS Soil classification system Textural soil classification system

TEXTURAL SOIL CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

Gravel > 1.00mm Sand 1.0mm to 0.05mm Silt 0.05mm to 0.005mm Clay <0.005mm
The system uses another term LOAM LOAM is mixture of sand, silt and clay Used in the agriculture and highway engineering Depends on the grain size distribution and does not reveal any other property of the soil

AASHTO Soil classification system (American Association of State highway and Transport Officials) /HRS Soil classification system

Developed in 1929 as the Public Road Administration classification System Committee on classification of materials for subgarde and granular type road of the HRS in 1945 Soil is classified into seven major groups
A-1 to A-7 A-1 to A-3 granular materials A-4 to A-7 silt and clay

1. Grain Size 2mm<Gravel<75mm 0.075mm<sand<2.0mm silt and clay<0.075mm 2. Plasticity Silt ----- PI<=10 Clay------ PI>=11 3. If cobbles and boulders (>75mm) are encountered, they are excluded from the portion of the soil sample.

Group Index
The GI of a soil depends upon -amount of material passing the 75micron sieve -liquid limit -plastic limit

GI = 0.2a + 0.005ac + 0.01bd

Where a = that portion of % passing 75 micron sieve greater than 35 and not exceeding 75 expressed as a whole number (0 to 40) b = that portion of % passing 75 micron sieve greater than 15 and not exceeding 55 expressed as a whole number (0 to 40) c = that portion of numerical liquid limit greater than 40 and not exceeding 60 expressed as a positive whole number (0 to 20) d = that portion of numerical plasticity index greater than 10 and not exceeding 30 expressed as a positive whole number (0 to 20)

-if negative value comes, it is taken as 0

-rounded off to the whole number -there is no upper limit -A-1-a, A-1-b, A-2-4, A-2-5 and A-3 is always 0 - quality of subgrade materials is inversely proportional to the group index

Unified soil classification system (USC)

Proposed by Casagrande in 1942, Army Corps of Engineers ASTM D-2487 Two broad categories
Coarse-grained soils (less than 50% passing though the No.200 sieve (0.075mm) gravel and sand (G & S) Fine-grained soils (more than 50% passing though the No.200 sieve (0.075mm) inorganic silt (M), inorganic clay (C), O organic silt and clay and Pt for peat, muck and other highly organic soils