INS 3121

SOIL MECHANICS
Origin of Soil & Grain Size
Distribution
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pelin ÖZENER
Civil Engineering Department
Geotechnics Division
Reference
Das, B. M. (2010), ‘‘Principles of Geotechnical Engineering’’
Seventh Edition, CENGAGE Learning.

2
The purpose of today’s class is to introduce you the orign of soils and
particle sizes of soils.
• When you complete today’s class, you should be able to:
• Understand the formation and composition of soils.
• Know the main minerals in soils.
• Determine particle size distribution of a soil mass.
• Interpret grading curves.
• Understand the differences between coarse-grained and fine-grained
soils.
Chapter Outline

ROCK CYCLE

ORİGİN OF SOİL

GRAİN-SİZE
DİSTRİBUTİON OF SOİL
2.1 Rock Cycle
and the Origin of
Soil
 Mineral grains: the product of
rock weathering.
 Rocks: Igneous, sedimentary
and metamorphic.
Igneous Rock
Igneous rocks are formed by the solidification of molten magma ejected from
deep within the earth’s mantle.
Fissure eruption or volcanic eruption
Plutons: magma ceases its mobility below the earth’s surface and cools to form
intrusive igneous rocks.
The types of igneous: depend on factors such as the composition of the magma
and the rate of cooling associated with it.
Igneous Rock
Bowen’s reaction principle: describes the sequence by which new
minerals are formed as magma cools.
1. discontinuous ferromagnesian reaction series, in which the minerals formed
are different in their chemical composition and crystalline structure
2. continuous plagioclase feldspar reaction series, in which the minerals
formed have different chemical compositions with similar crystalline
structures
Igneous Rock
Igneous Rock
  Types of igneous rock: depend on the proportions of
minerals available.
Igneous Rock  Granite, gabbro, and basalt are some of the common types
of igneous rock generally encountered in the field
Igneous Rock
Igneous Rock
 Formation of soils
• Soils are formed from the physical and chemical weathering of rocks.
Physical weathering involves reduction of size without any change in the
original composition of the parent rock. The main agents responsible for
this process are exfoliation, unloading, erosion, freezing, and thawing.
• Chemical weathering causes both reductions in size and chemical
alteration of the original parent rock.
• The main agents responsible for chemical weathering are hydration,
carbonation, and oxidation.
• Often, chemical and physical weathering take place in concert.
Weathering
Weathering: the process of breaking down rocks by mechanical and chemical
processes into smaller pieces.
Mechanical weathering : caused by the expansion and contraction of rocks from
the continuous gain and loss of heat, resulting in ultimate disintegration.
Physical agents that help disintegrate rocks:
• ice, glacier ice, wind, running water of streams and rivers, ocean waves.
 In mechanical weathering, large rocks are broken down into smaller pieces
without any change in the chemical composition.
Weathering
Weathering
Chemical weathering : the original rock minerals are transformed into new
minerals by chemical reaction.
Water and carbondioxide from the atmosphere form carbonic acid, which reacts
with the existing rock minerals to form new minerals and soluble salts.
Soluble salts present in the ground water and organic acids formed from decayed
organic matter also cause chemical weathering.
Sedimentary and metamorphic rocks also weather in a similar manner.
Weathering
Clay minerals : product of chemical weathering of feldspars,
ferromagnesians, and micas.
Three important clay minerals:
1. Kaolinite
2. Illite
3. Montmorillonite
Transportation of Weathering Products
 The products of weathering may stay in the same place or may be moved to other places by ice,
water, wind, and gravity.
• Residual soils:. Soils that remain at the site of weathering are called residual soils (i.e. the
weathered products at their place of origin) These soils retain many of the elements that
comprise the parent rock.
 Transported soils
1. Glacial soils
2. Alluvial soils
3. Lacustrine soils
4. Marine soils
5. Aeolian soils
6. Colluvial soils
SOIL TYPES BASED ON WAETHERING AGENTS
• Alluvial soils (Fluvial soils) are fine sediments that have been eroded from rock and
transported by water, and have settled on river and stream beds.
• Collovial soils (collovium) are soils found at the base of mountains that have been eroded
by the combination of water and gravity.
• Eolian soils are sand-sized particles deposited by wind.
• Glacial soils are soils that were transported and deposited by glaciers. They are mixed
soils consisting of rock debris, sand, silt, clays, and boulders.
• Glacial clays are soils that were deposited in ancient lakes and subsequently frozen. The
thawing of these lakes revealed soil profiles of neatly stratified silt and clay, sometimes
called varved clay.
The silt layer is light in color and was deposited during summer periods, while the thinner,
dark clay layer was deposited during winter periods.
• Lacustrine soils are mostly silts and clays deposited in glacial lake waters.
• Loess is a wind-blown, uniform, fi ne-grained soil.
• Marine soils are sand, silts, and clays deposited in salt or brackish water(marine
environment).
SOIL FABRIC
Two common types of soil fabric—flocculated and dispersed—are formed during soil deposition of fine-grained
soils, as shown schematically in the Figure .

 A flocculated structure, formed in a saltwater environment, results when many particles tend to orient parallel
to one another. A flocculated structure, formed in a freshwater environment, results when many particles tend
to orient perpendicular to one another.
 A dispersed structure occurs when a majority of the particles orient parallel to one another.
SOIL FABRIC
 Any loading (tectonic or otherwise) during or after deposition permanently alters the soil fabric or structural
arrangement in a way that is unique to that particular loading condition.

 The history of loading and changes in the environment is imprinted in the soil fabric.

 The soil fabric is the brain; it retains the memory of the birth of the soil and subsequent changes that occur.
2.7 Particle Shape
Significant influence on the physical properties of a given soil.
The particle shape generally can be divided into three major
categories :
1. Bulky: formed mostly by mechanical weathering of rock and minerals.
Geologists use such terms as angular, subangular, subrounded, and
rounded to describe the shapes of bulky particles.
2. Flaky: very low sphericity—usually 0.01 or less. These particles are
predominantly clay minerals.
3. Needle shaped: much less common than the other two particle types.
Examples of soils containing needle-shaped particles are some coral
deposits and attapulgite clays.
Particle Shape
2.2 Soil-Particle Size
Gravels: pieces of rocks with occasional particles of quartz, feldspar,
and other minerals
Sand particles: made of mostly quartz and feldspar
Silts: microscopic soil fractions that consist of very fine quartz grains
and some flake-shaped particles that are fragments of micaceous
minerals
Clays: mostly flake-shaped microscopic and submicroscopic particles
of mica, clay minerals, and other minerals
2.2 Soil-Particle Size
2.2 Soil-Particle Size
The boundary values ​separating groups are different for various
classification systems.
2.2 Soil-Particle Size
2.2 Soil-Particle Size
Clays: particles smaller than 0.002 mm
- develop plasticity when mixed with a limited amount of water
- in some cases, particles between 0.002 mm and 0.005 mm in size are also
referred to as clay
- Particles are classified as clay on the basis of their size; they do not necessarily
contain clay minerals
 Clay particles: Clay particles are mostly in the colloidal size range ( <1 µm), and 2
µm appears to be the upper limit.
2.3 Clay Minerals
Three important clay minerals:
1. Kaolinite
2. Illite
3. Montmorillonite
 Two basic units: Tetrahedron, Octahedron
• Silica tetrahedron • Alumina octahedron
2.3 Clay Minerals
Kaolinite
Consists of repeating layer of silica-gibbsite
sheets in a 1:1 lattice
Hydrogen bonding
Lateral dimension = 1000 – 20000Å, -
thickness =100 –1000Å
specific surface = 15 m2/g (the surface area
per unit mass)
Kaolinite
Illite
consists of a gibbsite sheet bonded to two silica sheets—
one at the top and another at the bottom.
called clay mica
bonded by potassium ions (K+)
lateral dimension = 1000 - 5000Å, - thickness = 50 - 500Å
specific surface = 80 m2/g
Isomorphous substitution: substitution of one element
for another with no change in the crystalline form
Montmorillonite
Structure similar to that of illite—that
is, one gibbsite sheet sandwiched
between two silica sheets.
Water layer bonding
Isomorphous substitution : aluminum
→ magnesium and iron
lateral dimension = 1000 - 5000Å, -
thickness = 10 - 50Å
Specific surface = 800 m2/g
Clay particles
Carry a net negative charge on their surfaces.
Positive charge at the edges.
Diffuse Double Layer:
In dry clay, the negative charge is balanced by exchangeable cations like Ca2+,
Mg2+, Na+, and K+ surrounding the particles being held by electrostatic
attraction.
When water is added to clay, these cations and a few anions float around the
clay particles.
The cation concentration decreases with the distance from the surface of the
particle.
Clay particles
Dipole character
Water molecules are polar. Hydrogen atoms are not axisymmetric
around an oxygen atom; instead, they occur at a bonded angle of
105°.
A water molecule has a positive charge at one side and a negative
charge at the other side
Clay particle-water molecule attraction
Dipolar water is attracted both by the negatively charged surface of
the clay particles and by the cations in the double layer.
The cations, in turn, are attracted to the soil particles.
A third mechanism by which water is attracted to clay particles is
hydrogen bonding, where hydrogen atoms in the water molecules are
shared with oxygen atoms on the surface of the clay.
Clay particle-water molecule attraction
Double-layer water
 All the water held to clay particles by force of attraction.
Adsorbed water
The innermost layer of double-layer water, which is held very strongly
by clay.
The thickness of the adsorbed water film determine the engineering
behavior of clays.
Clay-water attraction
Orientation of water around the clay particles gives clay soils their
plastic properties.
2.4 Specific Gravity (GS)
Specific gravity: the ratio of the unit weight of a given material to the
unit weight of water.
The specific gravity of soil solids is often needed for various
calculations in soil mechanics.
It can be determined accurately in the laboratory
Mostly GS = 2.60 to 2.9
Typical Value of Sand : 2.65
2.4 Specific Gravity (GS)
2.5 Mechanical Analysis of Soil
Mechanical analysis: the determination of the size range of particles,
expressed as a percentage of the total dry weight.
Two methods:
1. Sieve Analysis—for particle sizes larger than 0.075 mm in diameter
2. Hydrometer Analysis—for particle sizes smaller than 0.075 mm in diameter.
Sieve analysis
Evaluation of Sieve analysis Results
1. Determine the mass of soil retained on each sieve (i.e., M1, M 2, · · · M n) and in the pan
(i.e., M p)
2. Determine the total mass of the soil: M 1+M 2+ · · · +M i+ · · · +Mn +M p = ∑M
3. Determine the cumulative mass of soil retained above each sieve. For the ith sieve, it is
M1+ M2 + · · · + Mi
4. The mass of soil passing the ith sieve is ∑ M – (M 1 + M 2 + . . . + M i )
5. The percent of soil passing the ith sieve (or percent finer) is:

∑ 𝑀 − (𝑀1 + 𝑀2 + … + 𝑀İ )
𝐹= × 100
∑𝑀
2.5 Mechanical Analysis of Soil
• The calculations are plotted on semilogarithmic graph paper.
Hydrometer Analysis
Based on the principle of sedimentation of soil grains in water.
Stokes’ Law
For simplicity, it is assumed that all the soil particles are spheres;
Hydrometer Analysis
Hydrometer Analysis
K is a function of Gs and η, which are dependent on the temperature
of the test.
Hydrometer test
Conducted in a sedimentation cylinder usually with 50 g of oven-
dried sample. Sometimes 100-g samples also can be used.
Sedimentation cylinder: 457 mm high, and 63.5 mm in diameter.
Dispersing agent: Sodium hexametaphosphate.
Hydrometers are calibrated for soils that have a specific gravity, Gs of
2.65; for soils of other specific gravity, it is necessary to make a
correction.
Hydrometer analysis is effective for separating soil fractions down to
a size of about 0.5 µ.
Hydrometer
Sieve analysis and hydrometer analysis
The results of sieve analysis and hydrometer analysis for finer
fractions for a given soil are combined on one graph.
2.6 Particle-Size Distribution Curve
Four parameters for a given soil:
1. Effective size (D10): This parameter is the diameter in the particle-size
distribution curve corresponding to 10% finer. The effective size of a
granular soil is a good measure to estimate the hydraulic conductivity and
drainage through soil.
2. Uniformity coefficient (Cu): This parameter is defined as
𝐷60
𝐶𝑢 =
𝐷10
where D60 = diameter corresponding to 60% finer.
2.6 Particle-Size Distribution Curve
3. Coefficient of gradation (Cc): This parameter is defined as
2
𝐷30
𝐶𝐶 =
𝐷60 × 𝐷10

 The percentages of gravel, sand, silt, and clay-size particles present in a soil can
be obtained from the particle-size distribution curve.

The particle-size distribution curve shows not only the range of particle sizes
present in a soil, but also the type of distribution of various-size particles.
2.6 Particle-Size Distribution Curve
 2.6 Particle-Size Distribution Curve
Curve I: represents a type of soil in which
most of the soil grains are the same size.
This is called poorly graded soil
Curve II: represents a soil in which the
particle sizes are distributed over a wide
range, termed well graded.
For sands, Cc = 1 -3 and Cu ≥ 6
For gravels, Cc = 1 -3 and Cu ≥ 4
Curve III: combination of two or more
uniformly graded fractions.
IMPORTANCE OF GRAIN SIZE DISTRIBUTION
• Particle size analyses have many uses in engineering. They are used to
select aggregates for concrete, soils for the construction of dams and
highways, soils as fi lters, and material for grouting and chemical
injection.
• In next class, you will learn about how the particle size distribution is
used with other physical properties of soils in a classification system
designed to help you select soils for particular applications.
Coarse-grained and fine -grained soils have different
characteristics:

• Fine-grained soils have much larger surface areas than coarse-grained soils and are responsible
for the major physical and mechanical differences between coarse-grained and fine-grained
soils.
• The engineering properties of fine-grained soils depend mainly on mineralogical factors.
• Coarse-grained soils have good load-bearing capacities and good drainage qualities, and their
strength and volume-change characteristics are not significantly affected by changes in moisture
conditions.
• Fine-grained soils have poor load-bearing capacities and poor drainage qualities, and their
strength and volume-change characteristics are significantly affected by changes in moisture
conditions.
 Summary&Essential Points
1. Rocks can be classified into three basic categories: (a)
igneous, (b) sedimentary, and (c) metamorphic.
2. Soils are formed by chemical and mechanical
weathering of rocks.
3. Based on the size of the soil particles, soil can be
classified as gravel, sand, silt, or clay.
4. Clays are mostly flake-shaped microscopic and
submicroscopic particles of mica, clay minerals, and
other minerals.
5. Clay minerals are complex aluminum silicates that
develop plasticity when mixed with a limited amount
of water.
6. Mechanical analysis is a process for determining the
size range of particles present in a soil mass. Sieve
analysis and hydrometer analysis are two tests used
in the mechanical analysis of soil.
Essential Points (Cont’d)
7. A sieve analysis is used to determine the grain size distribution of coarse-grained soils.
8. For fine-grained soils, a hydrometer analysis is used to fi nd the particle size distribution.
9. Particle size distribution is represented on a semilogarithmic plot of % fi ner (ordinate, arithmeticscale)
versus particle size (abscissa, logarithmic scale).
10. The particle size distribution plot is used to delineate the different soil textures (percentages of gravel,
sand, silt, and clay) in a soil.
11. The effective size, D10, is the diameter of the particles of which 10% of the soil is finer. D10 is an important
value in regulating flow through soils and can significantly influence the mechanical behavior of soils.
12. D50 is the average grain size diameter of the soil.
Essential Points (Cont’d)
7. A sieve analysis is used to determine the grain size distribution of coarse-grained soils.
8. For fi ne-grained soils, a hydrometer analysis is used to fi nd the particle size distribution.
9. Particle size distribution is represented on a semilogarithmic plot of % fi ner (ordinate,
arithmeticscale) versus particle size (abscissa, logarithmic scale).
10. The particle size distribution plot is used to delineate the different soil textures (percentages of
gravel, sand, silt, and clay) in a soil.
11. The effective size, D10, is the diameter of the particles of which 10% of the soil is finer. D10 is an
12. important value in regulating flow through soils and can significantly influence the mechanical
13. behavior of soils.
14. D50 is the average grain size diameter of the soil.
15. Two coefficients—the uniformity coefficient and the coefficient of curvature—are used to
characterize the particle size distribution.
16. Poorly graded soils have uniformity coefficients ,4 and steep gradation curves. Well-graded
soils have uniformity coefficients .4, coefficients of curvature between 1 and 3, and flat
gradation curves. Gap-graded soils have coeffi cients of curvature ,1 or .3, and one or more
humps on the gradation curves.