Dual-Weight Fall Cone Method for Simultaneous Liquid and Plastic Limit Determination

Lee, Landris T.; Freeman, Robert R.

doi:10.1061/(asce)1090-0241(2009)135:1(158)

Cited by 20 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The Atterberg plastic limit 1 is a very important parameter in soils, mainly because it is widely used for geotechnical purposes 10,11,12 . The standard thread rolling test for PL determination has been widely criticized because it is highly dependent on the skill and judgment of the operator who is conducting the test and consequently new approaches to obtain the PL are claimed 6,7,9,13,[15][16][17][18][19][20][23][24][25] . However the simplicity, low cost and quick performance of the standard PL test give it an advantage over the unsuccessful alternatives proposed to date, despite the fact that the subjectivity of the operator is reduced in most of alternative methods, like those carried out by fall cones [15][16][17][18][19][20] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pfefferkorn test, cone penetrometer, capillary rheometer, torque rheometer or stress-strain tests are some examples of alternative methods for measuring soil plasticity 14 , but these are not adequate to obtain the PL. With the special instance of fall cone tests, a large number of researchers have attempted to define a new methodology for PL determination using different penetrometer designs [15][16][17][18][19][20] , but without reaching any real agreement. Furthermore, all of it is based on the assumption that the shear strength at the PL is 100 times that at the LL 21 , which is not true 22 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…) is accurate, quick, cheap and simple, which give it an advantage over the traditional thread rolling test and also over other alternative methods for PL determination (like those based on cone penetrometers [15][16][17][18][19][20] ). The implementation of the new bending test in geotechnical and soil laboratories would involve an improvement in the PL test performance, because in addition to the abovementioned features, now the criteria to obtain and calculate the PL would be clear, the skill or experience of the operator would not be a decisive factor for conducting the test properly and the subjective interpretation from the operator would also be minimized.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Bending Test for Determining the Atterberg Plastic Limit in Soils

Moreno-Maroto

Alonso-Azcárate

2016

JoVE

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The thread rolling test is the most commonly used method to determine the plastic limit (PL) in soils. It has been widely criticized, because a considerable subjective judgment from the operator that carries out the test is involved during its performance, which may affect the final result significantly. Different alternative methods have been put forward, but they cannot compete with the standard rolling test in speed, simplicity and cost. In an earlier study by the authors, a simple method with a simple device to determine the PL was presented (the "thread bending test" or simply "bending test"); this method allowed the PL to be obtained with minimal operator interference. In the present paper a version of the original bending test is shown. The experimental basis is the same as the original bending test: soil threads which are 3 mm in diameter and 52 mm long are bent until they start to crack, so that both the bending produced and its related moisture content are determined. However, this new version enables the calculation of PL from an equation, so it is not necessary to plot any curve or straight line to obtain this parameter and, in fact, the PL can be achieved with only one experimental point (but two experimental points are recommended). The PL results obtained with this new version are very similar to those obtained through the original bending test and the standard rolling test by a highly experienced operator. Only in particular cases of high plasticity cohesive soils, there is a greater difference in the result. Despite this, the bending test works very well for all types of soil, both cohesive and very low plasticity soils, where the latter are the most difficult to test via the standard thread rolling method.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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A Bending Test for Determining the Atterberg Plastic Limit in Soils

Moreno-Maroto

Alonso-Azcárate

2016

JoVE

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“…Simply based on analysis of historical data, as the ratio of strengths at the PL and LL varies substantially between soils, these strength-based approaches can only coincidentally give correct PL values, actually measuring what might be termed the plastic strength limit (PL 100 ); that is the water content corresponding to s uFC ¼ 100 Â s uFC(LL) . Fall cone Belviso et al, 1985;Wasti, 1987;Harison, 1988;Feng, 2000Feng, , 2001Feng, , 2004Koumoto & Houlsby, 2001;Sharma & Bora, 2003;Lee & Freeman, 2009;Shimobe, 2010;Sivakumar et al, 2015), steady monotonic penetration (Stone & Phan, 1995;Stone & Kyambadde, 2007), fast-static loading (Sivakumar et al, 2009) and extrusion (Timár, 1974;Whyte, 1982;Medhat & Whyte, 1986;Kayabali & Tufenkci, 2010a, 2010bKayabali, 2011aKayabali, , 2011bKayabali, , 2012Kayabali et al, 2016) approaches for PL determination have all been suggested as alternatives to the standard thread-rolling approach. As mechanical tests, these strength-based approaches are seen by some researchers as means of achieving higher degrees of repeatability and reproducibility of results, although, to date, most fall-cone research has been conducted on well-behaved clay-rich soils that lie above the A-line on the standard plasticity chart.…”

Section: Strength-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of fall cones to determine Atterberg limits: a review

2018

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This paper reviews the percussion-cup liquid limit, thread-rolling plastic limit (PL) and various fall-cone and other approaches employed for consistency limit determinations on fine-grained soil, highlighting their use and misuse for soil classification purposes and in existing correlations. As the PL does not correspond to a unique value of remoulded undrained shear strength, there is no scientific reason why PL measurements obtained using the thread-rolling and shear-strength-based fall-cone or extrusion methods should coincide. Various correlations are established relating liquid limit values deduced using the percussion-cup and fall-cone approaches. The significance of differences in the strain-rate dependency on the mobilised fall-cone shear strength is reviewed. The paper concludes with recommendations on the standardisation of international codes and the wider use of the fall-cone approach for soft to medium-stiff clays in establishing the strength variability with changing water content and further index parameters.

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“…Feng, 2000;Dolinar & Trauner, 2005;Lee & Freeman, 2009). Almost all of these researchers have assumed that the plastic limit is associated with a fixed strength (100 times that at w L ) and then used a strength test (e.g.…”

Section: Strength At Plastic Limitmentioning

confidence: 99%